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EFF Makes Call For DMCA Help
We are looking for diverse, real world examples of the ways in which the lives of ordinary fair users are strangled by the anticircumvention provision of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).
According to Judge Kaplan's ruling in the New York DVD Case (where 2600 publisher Eric Corley was ordered to take down DeCSS and any links to DeCSS), the DMCA makes circumventing access controls wrong, regardless of the reason you are circumventing. If your circumvention intentions are grounded in fair use, good for you. Fair use continues to be constitutionally protected by the First Amendment, but making and providing circumvention tools and even circumventing to do legal fair use is no longer allowed, thanks to Section 1201 of the DMCA.
Applying this rule to videos would mean that although recording David Letterman is constitutionally protected, the use of VCRs and Circuit City's "trafficking" in them are illegal.
We at the EFF feel that following this path will essentially destroy fair use. We foresee countless scenarios where librarians can't create a copy of encrypted material to archive, even if the archiving itself is a lawful use; professors can't use excerpts of encrypted material in classrooms even though the excerpts are a form of protected expression; scholars can't write their own computer programs to analyze the full digitized versions of copyrighted works in all media; and music aficionados can't customize digital searches for thematic research. But what else?
Surely there have got to be more examples, and we need to collect a short but powerful list of them. Tell us your most Draconian visions for a world where circumvention is always criminal even to get to the fair use that's not. Who would lose? And how?
Points will be given for brevity, concreteness and the ability to have your grandmother easily grasp the problem. Demerits applied for overuse of technical jargon, long-winded diatribes and multiple, repetitive messages. The winning scenarios may be discussed in our legal briefs, and, if they're very good, maybe even relied upon in a landmark legal decision throwing the statute out as unconstitutional.
Let's "open source" this problem.
Thanks,
EFF
This is actually a good point. It should be modded up.
There is much rejoicing throughout the land as privacy advocates are justified, encryption become de-villanified, and company CIO's everywhere sleep soundly at night knowing that their vitals are locked down.
Then Company Foo disappears, due to a natural disaster, lack of profits due to their great pricing policy, or a guerilla attack from a government agency who's existance became much more difficult because of Algorithm Bar. Or even better, they decide to sit on their profits, and raise the license price by a few powers of 10. Either way, the licenses are not renewed. The software implementing Algorithm Bar deactivates itself. The hardware implementing Algorithm Bar deactivates itself. All those records, all that information, it's locked away safely from everyone, including the copyright holder. In a DMCA-friendly world, it would mean prision time for anyone to try to crack that encryption to access their own records.
To me, this is very very similar to suggesting that if I build a house, and lock my keys inside, I'm not allowed to punch a hole through my basement window to get back inside.
Suggesting that someone isn't allowed to access their information (be it purchased, leased, rented, or personally created) except through approved means is insane. If a law was in place that said they had to call a locksmith every time their door blew shut and locked them out instead of just opening it with a credit card, or had to call the police to open their gym locker if they forget the combination rather than cutting the two dollar lock off, people would be furious. Information is just a specific form of property. Why should we tolerate someone limiting our access to ANY particular form of property?
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Just lurking, thanks!
That will also tend to degrade your picture, if you are one of those people who really really care about getting the sharpest picture ever out of your DVD player (and into your 10 year old single coax cheapo TV).
I read the internet for the articles.
Funny, I thought that attitude was limited to idiots like Jerry Falwell, Pat Buchanan, etc
And Ghandi, don't forget to ask him.
...phil
...phil
"For a list of the ways which technology has failed to improve our quality of life, press 3."
It sounds like he was referring to computer reel-to-reel tapes, which *ARE* digital.
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
"Pinky, you've left the lens cap of your mind on again." - P&TB
"I can see my house from here!" - ST:
....but my example was written up in a proprietary document format. I no longer have a valid license for the software which created the document. As such, any attempts to make the document available to you would be a violation of the DCMA. ;-)
sigs are a waste of space
If your package produced identical output for the same input, it would violate the DMCA, even though the code itself is all covered by the 1st Ammendment.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
As far as I can tell, the Linux version dosen't require the CD in the drive anyways. But for windows, that's certainly a pain.
On a related note, Epic themselves have realised that they don't gain anything by having hte CD check there, and so they removed it from the latest patch version, 436. Just patch to that version, and you won't need the copy protection cracks. But yes, I'd say your example falls under fair use, even if I don't know enough about the DMCA to say if it's being violated or not.
"The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike." -- Delos B. McKown
Much of the solo music that is usually performed at the high-school or collegate level is actually in the Public domain (Hint: The idea of copyright largely didn't exist in the days of the "great masters" who composed most of that classical music...). If it is PD stuff that she performed, there's this little thing about recorded performances. If it's your daughter's performance, there is a copyright on the recordings thereof that belongs to her if she's of age or belongs to her legal guardian for the duration of her minority status.
Doesn't matter really. Distribution of circumvention is illegal under DMCA- meaning the original author's argument stands. If you own the IP or are acting on the behalf of the owner, and you're not a hacker- you're out of luck saving anything from a "protected" device unless someone breaks the law for you or you're some sort of hacker intimately familiar with the encryption scheme and the innards of the device.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
Being ostacized because of being witless to the pop culture will only further us from the point of influence in peoples lives. A boycott of the media monsters would only mean an exclusion from the society we are trying to protect.
The church has somthing known as titheing, where poeple give a tenth of their income to the church. A scheduled donation to help battle sin, hmmmm....
In response to people's (including myself) hypocracy denouning the MPAA, but gawking over the latest movie, I will be giving money to the EFF dollar for dollar for every RIAA/MPAA movie or song, I purchase or pay them money for. If half of slashdot did that, think of the politicians EFF could buy(sorry but that is the way the game is played right now.) Look out AARP!
So next time you see someone drooling over Star Wars#, or the lastest remix of whatever, don't tell them to stop. Gently remind them to make two piles of money, and enjoy it.
Novel theory: Modern Man evolved from psychopath
So, while this is a UK based situation, international treaties guarantee my right to buy copyrighted material from anywhere in the world and make use of it elsewhere, the region coding and/or macrovision technology prevent me from doing so.
Wait, can I make DMCA work for me? Suppose I write a letter to my terrorist friend saying that I will kill the president and how I will do it. And I ROT13 it. Does that mean that if this letter is found it can not possibly be used in court against me because reading it would violate my copyright on it?
No, because law enforcement isn't hampered by the DMCA.
You think they would've let that one get by them?
Jay (=
After reading an earlier slashdot article about actually becoming a member of the EFF, I went to their website and became a student member for $20
For all the work they are doing to help you, have you contributed? $20 isn't alot for anyone here. I'd wager that most probably spent that in time posting to slashdot and preaching to the choir about what the EFF is fighting for.
I'm sure anyone could do the quick math, and realize how much financial support the slasdhot community can give to the EFF. So go and contribute your part to what this organization is doing.
I'll step off my soapbox now. I'll now bring you back to your normally scheduled trolls, already in progress. (^_^)
-- Some people say they can tell the time by looking at the Sun, but I have trouble seeing the numbers.
Some people learn by listening, others by reading, others by tinkering. I was the sort of kid that took everything apart, and asked for tools on christmas. Almost everthing that I know that is worth something comes from those times spent taking things apart, or fixing broken ones, or just trying to make them do something new. Between a reasonable set of tools and the library, it became possible to do pretty much anything given the ability to learn HOW THINGS WORK.
This freedom is something as a child that was a given. How else does one learn about things? You could answer "go to school" or maybe "get an apprenticeship". I dreamed of those things, and in fact did do work at a local TV repair shop FOR FREE just to learn more. (I have since fixed lots of televisions for people who needed it.) This sort of thing is ok, but not for all. Some of us want to learn early, or can't afford specialized school, or both.
My current position in life is a product of that early free time. I now get paid to help people, and solve problems. Just what I enjoyed doing as a kid. Lucky me -- or is it? Now I have to wonder as I have kids of my own, and they begin to ask questions. How do I answer? I know what I did, but that now is very quickly becoming criminalized. How can what I did be wrong? Why should the knowing be all mixed up with the doing? I feel just like the little kid long ago. Always being told basically that knowing how to do something is as bad as actually doing it. Worse I now am being told that if I actually do know something, that telling someone else is a crime because the information I possess is a device!?! WTF!
I believe that people have the right not to be dependant on others for things in life. This means fixing what is broken, learning new skills, and understanding the world around them. When someone has lots of money, they really don't have to worry. But when someone does not have a lot of money, well what do they do? They either do without, or learn how to better themselves, or become criminals. If you take away the ability to learn new things, or lock up information in such a way that it is hard to use, then what do you have left? Have-nots and criminals? Where is the sense in that?
My argument is this: The DMCA affects me in everyday life in that it restricts my ability to understand technology upon which I depend. This is not just movies, but understanding of the function of the world in a fundamental way. Does this understanding give me the power to break the law, and make use of material that I did not pay for? Most likely yes. I also know how to pick locks, copy media, and hot-wire cars among other things. Do I do them? NO! Those actions are morally wrong, unless someone needs them done, or I need them done for myself, on things THAT I OWN. We are not childeren. Most people have the common sense to make good use of what they know or suffer the consequences.
There has to be a balance between the control needed to keep the media giants happy, and letting people have some control over parts of their increasingly digital lives. Without this, I see a very harsh place to live where knowing something is as criminal as doing it. America the free becomes, America the ignorant.
Blogging because I can...
Wait a minute... While the scenario you mention is indeed regrettable, I don't think it's a DMCA issue. If the database was created by the doctor, then the software vendor is surely not the copyright owner. The copyright owner is the only entity whose permission you need to circumvent. That's why MPAA (not DVD CCA) sued 2600 (on the assumption that a MPAA member is always the copyright owner whenever CSS is circumvented).
Either the doctor owns the database, or no one does. If the doctor wishes to crack the database, DMCA can't stop him.
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As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
The firm you worked for was the copyright owner of the documents in question. Wang was not. Therefore, DMCA does not prohibit what you did.
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As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
This is indeed a danger, and your comment is much more insightful than most of the examples I have seen around here. However, I'm not sure such software would be ruled illegal. (Keep in mind that this decision is really made by a judge, not the DMCA since it was so poorly written.)
DMCA defines the word "circumvent" in a weird way that most of us mere humans may be unfamiliar with. It's in the "circumvent" definition that the question comes up of whether or not the copyright owner's authorization has been obtained.
Therefore, if a tool is primarily used by people to gain access to their own documents, then the tool might be ruled as not circumventing! I don't mean that it circumvents with permission; I mean that it doesn't circumvent at all, since lack of permission is required to circumvention to happen. Therefore, the tool may be legal, since its purpose would not be to circumvent.
This is different from the DeCSS situation, since (so far) nobody has used that tool to access their own copyrighted work. Unfortunately, up to now, all CSS-protected works have been owned by MPAA members. Changing this fact may cause DeCSS to become legal.
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As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Yes, but how are you to bypass? You can't produce a device to do it, that's not excepted. You can't obtain a device to do it, that's not excluded. Anyone who creates a device to circumvent in this instance is in trouble for the creation, not the circumvention. God help the creator if they lend it to a friend, now they're distributing it.
The composers have a copyright on the music. If you do not have the right to play it, then you can't, period. However, the recording is a seperate copyright. This means that if you want to play a recording in the store, you technically need both the composer copyright and the recorder copyright to do so.
Of course, in real life, this is absurd, so in the real music business, the recorders obtain the rights to the composer copyright (not exclusive, just enough), and take care of the finances on their end, so the player doesn't have to.
Finally, for a personal recording for archival purposes that will not be distributed, even in the unlikely event that this is some theoretical violation of copyright, damages are precisely zero and thus the composer can't "sue the recorder into oblivion".
Oh for petes sake, who gives a damn how it breaks? Perhaps the circuit board cushioned the hard drive, they can handle surprisingly large shocks. Maybe it sustained a large electrical shock that the hard drive didn't get in the way of. Maybe it was zapped by aliens who happen to have a soft spot in their heart for hard drives. Sheesh! Things break.
Yes, but simply recording the concert has nothing to do with the DMCA!
Indeed, this is part of the problem with the DMCA. It goes way beyond traditional copyright. By giving access restriction such holy status, it allows device manufacturors to control us in these ways, despite the fact we own the copyright. That's my very point!
Bands buy the right to perform the songs when they buy the sheet music, which should also be obvious that it works that way. Check your facts before you correct, please.
VHS tapes have Macrovision on them all the time. Ask Disney.
Laserdiscs, of which I own about 35 or so, don't.
Pope
Freedom is Slavery! Ignorance is Strength! Monopolies offer Choice!
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
If the DMCA flies, yes, software consumers will be scrooged. But will it stop there? When other big corporations see that software companies can ram this kind of legislation through the legislatures, will they ever be content with anything less?
Will the consumer of the future have any rights at all?
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
In (a), it says "is primarilly designed ... "
... "
It doesn't say anything about circumventing copyright, just circumventing access controls. It doesn't matter if you intend the device to be legally used on your own materials, it still circumvents an access control mechanism.
in (b) in says "... limited commercially significant purpose
If you create this device to access your own works it will have no commercial use, let alone outside of circumventing access controls.
This is why DeCSS would have been squashed under any circumstances. It has no commercial purpose, the players that will use it are free. It also has no other use, it exists to view DVDs, like a DVD player abvously does.
The law is (imho) an obvious attempt to squash any form of competition against the (mon/duo)poly situation where a limited cartel of companies produce the movies and the mechanism to view them.
What the fuck is a junk repetitive character post and why is it keeping me from posting a reply?
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
Yes, you can't infringe your own copyright, but I think that the poster was also pointing out something else: in this legal climate, the technology won't even exist to violate your own copyright.
.mp3 facilitating system), rather it is the way in which it is used (hey, got that new Britney Aguilera track?).
While no fan of Napster (it's called a business plan people), the situation is similar. There is nothing inherently illegal about what they do (a p2p
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
Let's not minimize point three. With the convergence of content providers with equipment providers (Sony being the most obvious example) what is to prevent Sony from making a CD/DVD/etc that will only play in Sony branded or licensed equipment?
Maybe that's what you are getting at, but I felt it needed to be repeated.
BTW, I've got several Beta tapes that have been 'archived' to VHS. Guess that won't happen again (and the ones that were worthwhile have been bought again on DVD. But suppose that, as often happens, the old, under-performing movies are not released in the new format. What happens then?)
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
Oh, so they're slipstreaming different versions under the same song titles? Good thing that doesn't yet crash music equipment.
Obviously, the DCMA requires that the player and monitor will detect an overly-long pause or monitor being off as a protection failure and they'll restart or shutdown.
I already haven't been able to put DVDs on my Christmas list because I won't buy DVDs until I can get Linux-compatible DVD players. I want to be able to use discs on any of my devices with screens, just as I can play my music CDs on any of my CD devices with speakers. The DVD industry and I are already unable to do business due to DVD restrictions.
Also, as you can tell by looking at the Cartoon Network schedule, "anime" is becoming increasingly popular here in the USA. I've liked it ever since "Star Blazers". But the DVD region coding is trying to block my ability to view anime bought from Japan. This undoubtedly is also happening for many other people with interests which happen to originate from other countries.
SDMI is trying to create music coding to restrict how equipment will process music. I anticipate future problems with people trying to listen to music from future international music crazes -- something which the music industry has depended upon for decades (anyone remember the effect of that little "English Invasion" in the 1960s?).
Even if there are no "region code" problems with SDMI, there will be small bands producing non-SDMI music which will accidentally trigger SDMI hardware. There will be other countries that will decide to create something like SDMI protection independently, and incompatible media will be produced (or worse: music damaged multiple times by multiple protection encoding).
And, of course, SDMI equipment is likely to make it difficult for me to put my legal CD in a player at home, have the speakers in my house detect me and have the music follow me, and have the same music from my favorite bands follow me out of the house and into my car, along the drive to work, and continue when I open my laptop. Right now I could do that, and makers of expensive whole-house music systems have been demonstrating much of that for decades. SDMI wants me to pay more for less -- or to listen to less music. [Technical note: I'd not use a radio link during my drive in the car. I'd use the IR or RF link between my garage and car to copy the music to the car audio system, and when I entered the car the car would tell the house to stop playing from the CD. I'm still listening to what I bought and nobody else is.]
However, a DMCA protection mechanism effectively secures this right for an unlimited time.
Also, this clause provides for an exclusive right. If I innocently use a DMCA protection mechanism to record my "Writings and Discoveries", then if circumventing the mechanism becomes necessary to retrieve my "Writings and Discoveries", but is illegal (or effectively so), then I have lost my exclusive right.
I used to be a cypherpunk for an e-commerce company. E-commerce obviously relies on good encryption, due to its use of credit card data. Indeed, failure to use such good encryption for credit data can lead to civil lawsuits for negligence, and possibly even criminal prosecution.
An e-commerce company is legally negligent if it uses encryption of dubious strength. The e-commerce company, or some trustworthy third party, must be able to test the decryption. The only way to do that is to actually try to break the encryption--something that, by virtue of the DMCA, is illegal.
Here's the scenario. A crypto vendor sells a "strong" encryption scheme. It unknowingly allows a "back door" (not rare at all--SSL had the "million question attack"). The current defense against such a vulnerability, independant attempts to crack the crypto (exactly what found the million question attack), are illegal.
The result is that the Bad Guys crack the crypto first, then start nabbing credit card data from an e-commerce site left and right. If the crackers are smart, nobody figures it out for months.
When people find out, customers file a class action lawsuit against the e-commerce site, claiming negligence because they used poor crypto hardware/software.
In short: the DMCA makes e-commerce a very risky business, indeed.
--The basis of all love is respect
Imagine being caught in a situation where the "legal decryption hardware" (descramblers, DVD players, etc.) are no longer available for sale. What if people switched to a rental model? Consumers would have virtually no protection.
--The basis of all love is respect
*HONK!* Better luck next time.
-*- Any technology indistinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced -*-
A simple case: Computer programs that are written often have mistakes in them [bugs]. To find and correct these mistakes, programmers use special powerful programs called "debuggers". But these same debuggers are one of the main tools used to break encryption.
So when the DMCA outlaws tools to circumvent encryption, does it then require all software to be buggy?
I've thought about this some more, and I've changed my mind. Jerf's example is a good one, and I agree it is probably the kind of example the EFF were after.
though, this aspect of the DMCA is well worked over, and wasn't what
the EFF was after: they were after instances of *fair use* of
copyrighted material that DMCA forbids.
What was extraordinary about the DeCSS trial was that the RIAA
didn't pretend that either DeCSS had been used to infringe copyright,
or that it provided a viable technology for profitable piracy, but
argued speculatively that changes in price could make it profitable,
and this possible future use for piracy was the only relevant use of
DeCSS. Well, what was extraordinary was that they got away with it...
So my question is, what happens when DVD becomes obsolete? If the consumer has a license for the data, he can convert the data on the DVD to a new format and end of story. However, if the industry decides five years from now to:
- start manufacturing players and "disks" in the new media, and
- stop manufacturing DVD players,
the consumer has no choice but to repurchase their entire DVD library.A real-world example? Well, the closest I could come to a real-world example would be if the only people who could legally manufacture a record player, a CD player, a cassette tape player, or a DAT player, was a licensee of the RIAA itself, and that the licensee agreed to stop manufacturing the old technology as soon as the new technology was announced.
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This is not my sandwich.
Let's suppose that the manufacturer of a word-processor decides to go to a subscription-based sale model in which the word-processor disables itself after its subscription has expired. Given this model, I could violate the DMCA by attempting to access my own documents (of which I am the copyright holder). This is because it seems to be implicit in the DMCA that the means of access to copyrighted works is also copyrightable (??). We need a good legal case in which someone is sued for accessing works on which THEY hold the copyright. Even judges should get that
-- Rich
Free your mind and your Ass will follow -- George Clinton
Cross-reference the right to read by the FSF.
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
All new monitors have both analog/DVI inputs.
False.
Samsung's newest top-of-the-line monitor doesn't have DVI inputs, just plain old 15 pin.
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What happens when you outlaw guns
Remember that US laws do not apply in Costa Rica. I haven't checked, but I assume that Costa Rica does not have an equivalent to the DMCA. John could probably gain back some freedom by returning to Costa Rica.
U.S. Laws don't apply in Norway either - unless your last name is Johansen.
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What happens when you outlaw guns
VValdo.
I'll try a few more, though those are tough to beat.
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What happens when you outlaw guns
That's not quite true. You can buy a separate converter box from Radio Shack that converts an RCA pulg output into a standard coax for connection to your television set. Sample partnumbers from the Radio Shack catalog are: 15-1268 15-1269 15-1267. I'd give links to their website, but they have a screwy cookie thing that prevents you from pasting a link and having it function properly. These devices are intended primarily to allow game consoles to be attached to older televisions and ship with most consoles but I don't see why they couldn't be used for a DVD player or other device.
_____________
I don't want free as in beer. I just want free beer.
Along similar lines, there are millions of reel to reel tapes out there. When we convert them to another format for archival purposes to be read on another machine some decades in the future are we not breaking DMCA big time? The tools we use convert the old reel to reel format to a CD format and while the information may be the same the format is not and it is a definite hack to convert it. Would the CIO's of the Fortune 500 step forward to be handcuffed?
Exactly, Shakespeare quotes it best in Hamlet:
"Nothing is good or bad, but thinking makes it so". (it's a paraphrase, too lazy to find it on the web)
Everyone has different morals, and no-one should ever be subject, against their will, to someone else's morals or beliefs.
Morals are very rarely consistent across societies, rarely consistent in a culture across a period of time, and usually inconsistent between members of the same culture in the same time. Ergo, morality is not something you should ever take a given; and you can't whine about something that is evil because you don't like it. Like a previous poster said, that is for people like Jerry Falwell and other moronic religous zealots.
And besides, morality and legality have little to do with each other, right?
Of course, now with the DMCA, this becomes a legal issue. Can you prove that the DMCA is an illegal or unconstitutional? Can you state that the DMCA goes against fair use? If you can, then great, go to it. If you can't, life's tough, live with it.
If you can ignore the law, successfully, under civil disobediance, and get it overturned, then good. If not, tough.
Or, like the EFF, you can try to prove that the law is detrimental, and try to beat it that was. What are the precidents for other laws of this caliber? Bluntly put, what are the odds of this being more than a ineffectual waste of time? Or even succeeding?
Bluntly put, you have a legal system in place; use it, and accept the decision on it. The morality side of things is a waste of time; my morals are my own, not yours, not his or hers, not theirs, and not Slashdot's.
"Don't mind me cutting myself on Occam's Razor"
Oops, I didn't mean that the law is the ultimate determinant of right/wrong; if you don't like laws, feel free to break them: it's your moral choice to obey them or not.
Arguably, I don't obey *all* of the laws to fit in this society; the general guidelines imply that several laws are minor and are rarely adhered to. Speed laws are a good example of this. Do you feel, as a member of this society, you must obey all of society's laws? Especially the DMCA?
I don't consider that society implies that individuals don't matter; I consider that society is more of a set of guidelines for a group of individuals to interact within a structured framework. If you wish to be a part of that society, you have to adhere to those guidelines. To think that individuals don't matter in a society is wrong wrong wrong; it's like saying that the foundations don't matter in a building.
> but expressing opinions of any kind on slashdot
> is not adhereing to the "code"
Since when? CmdrTaco, Roblimo, and every Tom, Dick, and Joe that is either a regular contributor or a frequent poster expresses opinions; I will just assume that I can post of my opinions freely. I have a positive karma that allows a 2 point posting by default. More importantly, from posting an opinion, I am having an intelligent conversation with an intelligent person. Therefore, opinions seem to be acceptable posting material.
"Don't mind me cutting myself on Occam's Razor"
I will argue that the moral line between right and wrong doesn't exist; that ultimately, you can be perfectly amoral if you so choose: good vs evil is a purely artificial battle, and that you can choose just not to participate in it.
Honestly, I can do anything I can mentally conceive, and physically enact, if I want to. Morally, I believe that everyone, *as an individual*, has that basic right.
However:
I have to voluntarily surrender (most of) my amorality to be a part of this society, the Western society. I have to accept the general guidelines, laws, and morals of society to be a functioning part of it. Continuing on, to work at the company I am employed at, I have to accept their additional moral structure as part of my employment contract. Continuing even further, I am part of a profession, and I must also respect, and uphold my professions code of ethics if I wish to maintain my membership.
In fact, you could even state that to be a part of the Slashdot community, I adhere to the unspoken moral system of the intelligent posters, in that I speak my mind on the manners in an intelligent fashion, I try to be respectful to other intelligent posters (as is yourself) who may or may not agree with me, and don't "First Post", troll, spam, or flame.
However:
The amount of variation in Western morals is immense, for even for most of the non-arbitrarily defined laws and morals. Is the DMCA a moral law? Obviously, to someone, it must be; as it *is* law. To most people here, it isn't. That's a pretty wide gulf on the morality scale, and because of that, no-one is right on it. The "stretch", so to speak, I have to exercise in moral boundaries is immense; and, quite unfortunately, the accountability in today's society for "being moral" is horrible weak.
Yes, considering myself amoral is probably sociopathic; but, in the end, to be a part of this society, I have the responsibility to learn, and adhere to, that society's basic principles, or suffer the punishments for ignoring them. It is my choice to be a Westerner; as such, I am bound by the culture I have voluntarily chosen.
I hope I have answered your implicit question and assuaged your worries about my moral structure, Mr. Ramsey. Thank you for the opportunity to express myself, and the opportunity to make me think by challenging my beliefs in a polite fashion.
"Don't mind me cutting myself on Occam's Razor"
I think I am just Devil's advocating here; but please read on, Talesout.
Oh, no, I am not saying it is a waste of time to oppose anything stupid; I am just saying:
A) Prove it is stupid.
B) Verify that it is stupid.
C) Consider several methodologies to fight it, especially considering the ones that use the system in place (or change the system, your choice)
E) Accept the results.
I fully agree with you that you must stand up for your rights, and routinely defend them. I just never remember being granted the right to reverse engineer whatever I want. Why do you think you have that right?
I agree with you that big business has a lot of power in today's society. But why does big business want my rights, and want to control me? Arguably, several business already have ungodly amounts of power over me: Lego, Blizzard, my company of employment, Lucas Films, to name a few.
How do you propose we "look at [a law] seriously and figure out whether [a law] is right or not?" and then get our esteemed decision acted upon? I am inferring from you that voting is not the answer.
Morality has something to do with legality? I have to disagree with that for the most part. An example: in my home country of Canada, as of 1983, it was perfectly legal for a someone to rape their spouse. Is that moral? Maybe originally, one day, laws were based on morality; but now?
"If morality doesn't matter, and only the "legal" system matters, well then, we've all already given up our rights."
Why do you say that? Your "rights" are guaranteed by law, are they not? Either you understand that the laws of the land work for you as well or against you, or move somewhere else. I choose to live here; I must live with the consequences of that action.
To sum up, while the legal system has flaws, ultimately, it is all you have. It's not the best you could have, but it's not the worst. If you can use it to kill the DMCA, go for it; if not, you can't.
"Don't mind me cutting myself on Occam's Razor"
As covered on slashdot and elsewhere, I was forced to retroactively change my class notes, change my syllabus, and forbidden from demonstrating DeCSS for my Linux Administration Class at UNC-Chapel Hill. Note this was months and months before DeCSS was found to be illegal.
Although at least one deposition taken in the 2600 case identified me and 2 other uses of DeCSS in higher education, I believe I was the only person who actually demonstrated its use in a legitimate classroom context. Or tried to...
Note that the LoC's recent exceptions have done nothing to change UNC's interpretation that it's illegal for me to demonstrate anti-circumvention devices (or DeCSS, anyway) in my class, regardless of how clearly it related to my class content.
Here is a real world example, this has not happened to me but to other people I know.
I am a freelance visual effects operator creating graphics effects work for feature films and tv commercials. The contract I sign when working explicitly states that I do not own the copyright to works I create, and that full ownership of copyright (usually) belongs to the production company.
Normally, after finishing a job the company will give me copies of the work I have done in a non protected digital format which I can then use for my own personal use in my showreel which I must show to other companies to obtain more work.
However sometimes things go wrong, the company goes bankrupt or there is a falling out between the freelancer and the company or they just forget and you don't have a copy to use for your showreel. In these cases I can get a copy of the DVD of the film in which work I have done appears and using DeCSS obtain an unencrypted portion of the shots I have worked on to use in my showreel.
This showreel is not distributed, it is taken by me and shown to a small number of companies to get more work and so falls under fair use. This same situation could happen to print graphics designers or sound engineers or artists once DMCA protected mechanisms become more prevelant.
I have a simple problem involving DVDs. I am planning to put together a web page that talks about the excellent cinematography that was done for some of the big 70mm epics of the 50s and 60s. I wanted to be able to grab a screenshot from the "West Side Story" DVD, and along with a screenshot of a more recent movie (haven't decided which one) shot using the crummy Super-35 format, and then compare the two.
Unfortunately, I cannot grab any such screenshots using licensed DVD players, since they all prevent taking screenshots. The only way to do this would be to use DeCSS to extract the MPEG-2 video off the discs and then grab single-frame shots using video editing software. However, this is currently illegal under the anti-circumvention provision.
I think this easily qualifies as "fair use", since it is for the purposes of criticism. It would be a very brief quote, since all I want is to grab a single frame, that is, 1/24th of a second, from a 2-hour movie.
The anti-circumvention provision of the DMCA is thus preventing me from exercising my fair use rights for the purposes of criticism. Are we really going to allow big companies to prevent criticism in the digital age?
Free Hans!
Actually, I would predict that market forces would probably doom the DVI standard. Just as the (original) DIV-X players enjoyed an early demise, so will go DVI.
When it comes down to it, those who care will buy monitors that have non-DVI inputs, and there will be a significant market for these devices. This is especially true as computer competence levels rise within the general populace (as it is currently in most universities).
Right now this is just Intel trying to be smarmy with the IP nazis, once they realize it'll lose them money they'll drop it.
Unbreakable toys can be used to break other toys.
All this bitching and moaning from the RIAA and the MPAA is a red herring. The real reason they want these controls in place is because they will effectively allow these organizations to continue their publishing monopolies.
In the future, my garage band may be able to play its own music but the rest of the world may not be able to listen to that music because we won't have the RIAA blessing necessary to encode our music in the format everyone uses. Same thing goes for video or even plain text and program code.
The established industry wants to lock me into their established solutions. The DMCA is about nothing more than elminating your choices as a consumer and making it illegal to compete with the established media companies. And it ultimately will give them the power to allow or deny access to any idea anyone has anywhere.
If that's not against both the spirit and the letter of the First Ammendment and against the spirit of the original intent of copyright, I don't know what is.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
From what I hear, optical media breaks down after 10 or 15 years. If you find a bunch of DVDs in 2090, they probably won't be readable anyway.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
I time-record episodes of my favorite TV shows in my dorm (on my TV card), recompress them with DivX/MPEG-4, and download them onto my laptop (via wireless ethernet) to watch when I need to spend time on campus between classes.
Ignoring the dubious status of DivX, this is something I'd like to continue to do legally! The way industry/legislation is leaning, they'd love to put a protection mechanism on upcoming digital broadcasts so that I can't do this. The DMCA will be a major tool in making it fly legally.
So what are you saying..that the law trumps any moral code? This means that there can not BE an immoral law. China's iron grip on the media? Hey, that's cool - it's the law. South Africa's apartheid? Of course there's nothing wrong with it. It's the LAW, for Christ's sakes. Surely you don't think some moral principle trumps the law do you?
"The legitimate powers of government extend only to such acts as are injurious to others." Thomas Jefferson.
When vinyl disks were going out of fashion, I could legally copy some of my music on a tape. That was very fortunate, as those recordings have not been released on CDs ever, so there was no way I could buy the same music on a newer format. With the speed digital things move, it is not unlikely that todays music, videos, or encyclopedias I buy will be unaccessible to me in three years, and that I can not even buy any machines to use them.
In Murphy We Turst
I say we look at wrenches.
A car company build a car, using many patented
parts and copyrighted designs in the process.
If we applied the DMCA philosophy to a car, then
wrenches would be illegal, since you could use
them to take apart and copy those patented items.
YOU COULD NOT BUY A WRENCH, even though all you
wanted it for was to change your oil! THAT is how
the DMCA works!
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
what's going to happen when the copyright expires
Copyright expires? I thought Congress made copyrights perpetual in the United States, exploiting a loophole in the Constitution.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Learning is essential to our nation to grow and be the beacon of light that attracts the best and the brightest, we need the right to Fair Use regardless of the data format, regardless of the encryption, and regardless of what the corporations think.
The citizens have the unquestionable right to decode and decrypt any part or whole of any data to use in the Fair Use doctrine.
Allow me to make my point using this example: NYU College of Dentistry has made it voluntary that students not buy the books as books, but to buy the books on a DVD ROM. The DVD is time sensitive, which costs $600 for one year of use. After which you will need to update your license to continue access to the books. You cannot print from this book, and notes taken will have to be kept elsewhere.
Now please look at your library of law books. Many of these volumes are old, and outdated to some degree or another, but the knowledge within is still valid, still readily accessible. A 25-year-old book can still be read, shared, and learned from.
Now imagine if all of those books were on a computer database that required you to pay a yearly fee to access (Westlaw not withstanding), what would happen if you could not access an important piece of information?
This is what we are fighting agaist. The naked profitism under the guese of protecting the copyright holder.
Content should not be allowed to be licensed. If the Content is in the form of software, it should not be allowed to be encrypted, and if encrypted, it should not be illegal to decrypt by any means. Fair Use is deeply tied to the First Amendment, and need to have all the protections granted to it by the courts.
Thank you.
III.IIVIVIXIIVIVIIIVVIIIIXVIIIXIIIIIIIIVIIIIVVIII
Don't you mean "The Land of the Fee"
As a computer consultant, user, and American four "worst case" scenarios for the anti-circumvention portions of the DCMA have occurred to me for your use:
1. As a database programmer, I am frequently called upon to rescue client's data trapped in legacy systems. Usually these legacy systems are software that is no longer supported, even if the manufacturers are still in business. Under the anti-circumvention restrictions of the DCMA, I would no longer be able to legally retrieve the client's data from an encrypted database, even if there was no other way to get the data! Two examples of data rescues that would now be illegal under the DCMA:
a. Shortly before Y2K, I needed to dump all of a client's bookkeeping data from ACCPAC for DOS into text files so that the data would not be lost when the application crashed at midnight, December 31st. The ACCPAC sales staff were quite uncooperative, claiming that I needed to purchase an "upgrade" for the unsupported product -- to the tune of $4000 -- before they would let me have the codes for export. However, information on the data storage scheme they used was available via the web, and a contractor I knew was able to piece something together that retrieved the relevant data (for about $700). This would now be illegal, and my client would be forced to pay $4000 to save their own data.
b. Frequently my clients lose their Microsoft Access database passwords, or mess up the security scheme so that they cannot get into their own database. I have a 3rd-party product which uses a disk sector read of the database in order to get the passwords, allowing the client to get their database back. Under the DCMA, this product, which could also be used for cracking, would become illegal and my clients would be helpless.
2. As a consultant, I often have to carry around CD media of software so that I can install and un-install certain components to my laptop and work with the client's software. The MSDN Library and the Windows 98 CD are good examples. However, dragging those CD's to every client's site puts them in some jepoardy of scratched and loss, so I make copies and leave the originals in a safe place.
a. Under the DCMA, if the software vendor put rudimentary copy protection or put the software on encrypted media (like DVD), it would be illegal to do this kind of back up. Thus I would be in constant danger of losing my only copy of some very expensive and vital software.
b. Even the most restrictive shrink-wrap agreements permit backup of licensed software for protection against loss. Why is Congress interested in enforcing more stringent copy portection rules than even the software companies want?
3. My fiancee' is a huge Highlander fan. She belongs to any number of online societies which circulate images and stories about the show.
a. Screen captures for this purpose are legal from VHS, but illegal from DVDs. What legal sense does this make?
b. Why does the MPAA want to illegalize the sampling of popular genre movies and TV shows by fans, when such fan groups are 75% of the audience for succeding movies and spin-offs?
Then they can sue under statuatory damages. $200 minimum, $2500 maximum for circumvention. Read sections 1201 and 1203 of the DMCA for yourself.
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
I have a lot of slides. In the future, digital camera may take picture in proprietary encrypted formats. Those could be viewed only on specific devices (and be lost the day where the maker of the device goes out of business)
Note that digital information is often harder to preserve than non-digital information (ie: anyone getting its hands on a few millions of Word documents in one hundred years will be in deep troubles).
Cheers,
--fred
1 reply beneath your current threshold.
I've actually seen websites that attempt to copyright their CSS code so that other websites do no copy their style. Sure this is a bit strange, but for arguments sake, how else are you going to prevent someone from totally ripping off your design?
--
Wooden armaments to battle your imaginary foes!
If I used the exact layout of NewsWeek or Popular Mechanics, would I be violating their copyright?
--
Wooden armaments to battle your imaginary foes!
Don't worry, everything will be copyrighted until the end of time anyway, and no-one will be allowed to create anything without the official MPAA/RIAA creation plugin for Microsoft Brain 2010.
Copyright on these works is owned by me, under the psuedonym d.valued and this
;), with the
work was initiated on 29 Nov 2000, 0511z.
Story One.
Dan, a man in his mid-thirties, was geting up and getting ready to go to the
office. He took the reading slates of the newspapers he read: Chicago
Tribune, Wall Street Journal, and the New York Times. He still received
the Financial Times in paper format, a notion considered 'quaint' and
'antequated' by the mainstream media in the USA. He reviewed each paper
and jotted down the article reference numbers of the article he wished to
rent, as once you retrieved a new day's newspaper, the old one was
irretrievably erased. Each paper had a seprate Network Access Device attached
to the Internet through his fiber optic phone line.
He slotted each r-slate in its own port, swiped his credit card, and in three
minutes his personalized newspapers were ready to go. He initiated a few
extended viewing requests on the article he had noted. One article was a
staff article, so he only had to pay the base daily rate of $10 for use.
The other articles were written by individual writers who charged by the
view outside the newspaper, which could run up to the hundreds of dollars if
viewed frequently enough. It was a pretty good way to make a living if you
wrote articles in demand, such as on higher-level stocks. Consequently, writers
were vying for the priviledge of writing the next day's article on the big
technology, media, biotech, and other popular public megaconglomerates,
while news about smaller issues outpasing the market and the monoliths
of postmodern industry were ignored.
He slid his slates and his writing pad into his briefcase backpack and
hopped aboard the morning express to downtown and the financial office
where he worked.
The rails were slow today; there was a small accident involving an
electric bike and alocal train. This blocked up the tracks and he took
out his Journal. He gripped the edge so his fingerprints would prove
his identity, and he had to punch in a custom PIN when prompted. The hand
that gripped served two purposes. Firstly, the r-slate was organized so
that up-down movements and menu access could be done from one side of the
device. Secondly, and more importantly from the point of view of the
copyright holders, you could only read the r-slate if the fingers pressed
on the pad and the prints could be read. As soon as the finger pressure
was released, the slate turned off until you held the r-slate properly and
punched in your PIN again.
It was frustrating when a gentle bump derailed his train of thought and
caused him to lose his grip for a few moments in the midst of one of the
retained stories. Now he had to pay for a second reading when he barely
even had a first, and there was nothing he could do about it.
At the office, he pulled out his Information Debit Card. Since the Internet
only proved profitable as an information distribution medium when the content
was controlled and paid for, this card was needed to access the most current
ratings on the stocks he traded within the company and recommended to his
clients. This information could only be accessed while onscreen; you could
not print it out (without an extrordinarily expensive Print Version; the
cost for a version which could go to hardcopy was about 1000 times more
pricy, as one could use it without further accountability) or save it
onto a local storage medium. It was a hard job which required a memory
beyond reproach, but he had one and he loved the challenge (and the
pay).
One of his coworkers was being escorted out while he was reading "Intel
and AMD: The Rivalry For The Next Twenty Years?" The escorters were not
normal security, or even normal cops. They were the Copyright Enforcement
Office, whose sole purpose was to locate people who were violating the
ironclad protections of copyright. They were an advanced intelligence
agency, one which could in time of war shut down parts of the DataNet
as needed. They were good at what they did. They boasted a 90% capture
rate and a 100% conviction rate. Like the early FBI, CEO involvement to
the eyes of the public, most police agencies, and most judges, you were
guilty. He felt sorry for his friend, who would be in a high-security
federal prison for at least nine years (assuming parole; federal sentances
mandate at least 90% completion of sentance before consideration for parole,
and in techcrimes, parole was less likely) and would have his assets
liquidated to cover at least part of the mandated $1,000,000 or 100,000 times
license fee, whichever was higher.
His heart pounded a little harder. He had bought, at high price, a small
device which could monitor DataNet transmissions without interference, in
theory. He feared discovery, as the CEO's were everywhere and encouraged
turning violators in for a share of the large penalties.
He wondered who the rat was.
This person was the one who introduced him to the device, and he claimed
that he used it for 'fair use', an antique concept that one could use
small segments of copyrighted works without needing to pay again for the
rights. He claimed he downloaded many works for future reference: music,
scripts, books, poetry, art. Probably was too zealous.
He unclipped the device out of fear just as his manager walked by. He
didn't seem to notice.
The CEO's were almost outside the door.
The manager snapped his fingers.
Almost instantly, the CEO's leapt upon him like a pack of wild animals.
They grabbed at him, restrained him, and patted him down to discover the
device.
He was dragged away.
End Story One
Story Two
This is the tale of two students. One lived in an affluent area, one
in the inner city.
Jack took a last look at the works on his library slate, and jotted the
concepts from the works just before midnight. At precisely 0000 hours, the
slate's memory erased itself. He had to plug it into a phone line before
morning, and he'd be up typing off the paper he had to turn in within ten
hours. He plugged it in, waited for the confirmation notice, and turned it
off. These measures were necessary to verify that the works were, in fact,
erased and that no extractions or duplication occurred. The library was now
free to lown its e-text to someone else with a proper slate, as they only had
a limited number of restricted use licenses for each work. The Copyright
Enforcement Office performed regular audits, and this little measure relaxed
the legal team at the library somewhat. He spent the next three hours typing
and proofing the digital text he had just created. He was pretty sure that
he hadn't done anything criminal, like using an exact quote or not citing
every source referred to. (Each source got a small fee from the school for
use.) He went to sleep a little more soundly as the text was copied onto a
mini-disk for computer assurance and grading.
Zoe had a stack of books in front of her in her small, one-bedroom apartment
in the near Southwest side of the city. Her library was one of a scant and
shrinking few to still have paper texts, and as her family couldn't afford
the cost of a single library slate, she was permitted use of the hardbacks.
They had their drawbacks, like being out of date the moment they left the
press, their weight, and the difficulty in tracking the segments relating to
a particular topic, but they were freer to use and utilize. She still could
not use exact quotes, after all fair usewas deemed a violation of copyright
holders' rights. She could get away with not listing a source or two, and
maybe a little smudging of lexicon here and there. (Not all works were in
digital format yet, and sometimes these little things got past the CEO's.)
She stuck in a disk and let the machine do its work while she got a few
precious z's before swimming practice.
Zoe's day started at 5:20, almost four hours after she went to sleep. The
disk was ready for inspection, and she stuck her old textbooks into her
schoolbag. Modern schoolbags were designed for the newer access-controlled
virtual books, so she had to use a large retro bag she picked up at a
garage sale over the summer. It was serviceable, and properly patched and
stickered it worked with her personality. She threw on some clothes to keep
warm, tossed her swimsuit and some clothes for during and after class in
her bag, and popped out the door with a couple of Pop-Tarts. She picked
up a pint of soymilk at the convinience store next to her bus stop. She
got on the bus, switched to a train, and got to school about ten minutes
before practice. She changed real quick, took a quick run through the showers,
and dived into the ice-cold pool. Coach's idea of a warmup.
Jack got into his car with about forty-five minutes to go before class
and a thirty-eight minute drive ahead of him. His small pack, smaller than
a laptop bag, contained the access-controlled, time-limited textbooks on
DVD his school bought into. The annual usage fee was about a quarter the cost
of a paper text, and the company assured "continual updates of the information"
on a near annual basis. So far, these versions were used for five years. They
had visual examples and a shorter, lecturelike style for the text itself, but
these books sometimes skipped and scratched and the replacement cost, at $200
plus license (which could sometimes run to $100 for a scholastic year) per book
was high even for an affluent school district. He straightened his tie, checked
his pockets.. he forgot the paper at home! Fortunately, he was just barely out
of the driveway and his first period teacher rarely gave detention for
tardiness.
Zoe finished practice. She had fifteen minutes to her first class, so she
took a slightly leasurely shower. When the clock said she had five minutes,
she scrambled to get dressed and to class. She was a half a minute late, so
she put her paper's disk onto the teacher's desk and took a seat. The teacher
was occupied running the papers through the CEO's systems. Already two students
of the five checked were caught with copyright violations.. make that three
of six. It was a very fine tightrope you had to walk on; too little and you
get a poor grade and a CEO warning for using too few sources, too much and
you probably violated copyright law. The teacher started to talk.
Jack had to scam a space in the boonies of the school's expansive parking
lots. He ran to the door, text-disks, player, and assignments in hand,
scrambling to the stairwell, going downstairs, making two rights, getting
to the door, and grabbing his seat. He was out of breath and took a moment
to catch it. "Mr. Chanar! Your assignments, please!" his teacher barked.
He fumbled through for the disk. The professor stuck it into a machine.
Zoe got lucky. Just enough sources. Just enough fudging of data. She passed.
Jack got busted. He received a zero-grade, in accordance with CEO policy.
Apparently, some of his style imitated the works cited.
Story Three
Blank tapes have been getting harder to get since the ruling. A legal, blank
VHS tape would both have a microchip tag and a macro-price tag of ten dollars
or more per tape, in bulk, easily. Illegal blank tapes without the chip
were at least doubel that, and possession was a crime since the chip prevented
recorders from recording unauthorized programs.
Even though the video quality was reduced, some still prefered the VHS to
the digital formats. Older, chip-free tapes were portable to older player-
recorders and had enough video fidelity (with a properly analog'd signal)
to record the stuff well enough for future viewing. Tape was still the
only way die-hard aficionados of certain science fiction series, like
the Star Trek series, Babylon 5, Doctor Who, Red Dwarf, and fiends of
the Monty Python Flying Circus would view the episodes.
Finding a source with the chipped tapes was hard enough. Manufacturers
focused primarily on digital tape formats with inbuilt copy restriction.
High-end shops and used equipment stores had them, primarily, but some
upscale retailers had small supplies available. Chip-free tapes could
only be obtained through the dark grey and black markets. Then, you
hoped for older, factory wrapped gear, as tapes manufactured by some outfits
were not reliable, some not even useful.
Chip-free tapes were the only way a digital-media movie could be copied.
That's why Marla went out. Their copy of "Titanic" was nearing the end
of its useful life. The license expired in two days and change, and she
liked the movie a lot, too much to have to pay the outrageously high
one disk, one player fee. That's why she ventured into this dark market.
"Fifty dollars, one hour. Two hundred dollars, two hour," the seller said.
She paid for the two-hour tape and walked away. Someone tailed her.
As soon as she put it in her VCR, a knock came from the CEO's.
That's it for now, I can't think of more as the Angel's Advocates. I've
put some ideas, like limited-use newspapers and library books, copyright-
checks in school and work, license fees for use. Some basic ideas, granted,
but some the courts probably can understand.
Ended 30 Nov 00, 0825z. Gotta go to church in a few hours. It's my
namesday.
I'm giving permission to put this out for the world to see, without charge
as long as not incorporated into a for-profit work, be it a novel, an
essay, or even a motion picture (yes I think evil thoughts
exceptions of the EFF (I know you guys are NFP, but I'm just covering my
rectum) and 2600: The Hacker Quarterly.
I used to be someone else. Now I'm someone better.
Real life is underrated.
Our rights as citizens of this country are being infringed every day in a new way. (Look at FLorida. jk.)
This competition is a way of playing (since I assume (wrongly) you are a pro-rights person) Angel's Advocate in a world of devils. You gotta think in a wicked-evil way how the world would be assuming the DMCA's provisions are enforced in the way they appear to be. In addition, you get to show legitimate uses for freecopy (uncontrolled, unrestricted access of certain works) in modern life. Libraries and academia are given, but there are countless others.
You get to use your imagination. Create a data tree of possible cause-and-effect scenarios for The Future. I see a hypercorporatized world where governments exists to take care of the dirty bits corps don't want to and to protect the corps' assets and products first.
Oh wait, we're already there.
And now, d.valued's Prediction Of The Day: Within the next 24 years, another extension of copyright act will be passed by Congress.
Mickey's expires in 2024 (thanks to the Sonny Bono F+++ The Public, err Memorial Copyright Act), and Disney don't want the mouse in the public domain.
I used to be someone else. Now I'm someone better.
Real life is underrated.
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
here's a pretty simple example: you've got a TV with just an RF input on it. You buy a DVD player, but it doesn't have RF out, so you run it through your VCR. Problem is, this kicks in Macrovision and screws up the image. The only way to solve that is to get a 'video clarifier' that removes the Macrovision. But, that's now circumvention of an access control.
According to the DMCA, if you made a digital VCR (i.e. a VCR that transmitted and received signals via some digital means, instead of those lossy copper cables), it would be illegal to use it in the exact same way that US courts have been deemed fair use for regular VCRs in the Betamax case from the mid-eighties.
--
Do daemons dream of electric sleep()?
I live in New Zealand, where the law considers DVD zones to be an illegal trade barrier. But in a few weeks I'll be moving to the USA.
How difficult is it to get zoneless DVD players in the USA? How easy (and cheap) is it to get the model of your choice "chipped" to become zoneless?
Would it be easier to mail myself a DVD player from New Zealand, and worry instead about replacing it's power supply? (NZ runs at 240V)
Being from Australia and moving to the USA I have noticed the same thing. I unknowingly bought a DVD player for my PC (which ran windows at the time) which included a Creative DxR3 decoder card. Now I have three DVDs (Seven, Face/Off and The Crow) from whatever zone Australia is, and if I buy more DVDs, they will be zoned for the USA. I effectively have no way to access the content on those DVDs. Making a device to get around the zone protection is illegal, as well is aquiring one. Using DeCSS to decrypt the movie to record it in MPEG would be illegal as well. Under the DMCA my only alternative is to buy ANOTHER DVD decoder card. ONE to play Australian zoned DVDs, ANOTHER to play american DVDs. Surely this constitutes a violation of the "Fair Use" clause in the constitution??
---
Video meliora proboque deteriora sequor - Ovidius
How about this: DVD Audio. The primary reason I got a CD-RW was to make custom music CD's. I have hundreds of discs, dozens of which I purchased because I really liked one or two songs on the album. I burn my own CD's with custom mixes, I rip the tracks into MP3's and upload them to my portable MP3 player. If I purchase a copy of a CD, I can do basically anything with it for personal use. I commit a crime when I give copies to others. I also burn copies of CD's I want to keep in my car.
DVD-Audio is supposedly a higher-fidelity audio standard than standard redbook audio used by CD's. Although there is little danger of DVD-Audio taking over soon, I can see the RIAA ceasing all production on CD's within 5 years, because of the additional protection granted to them by encrypting/watermarking/whatever on DVD-Audio. Although the encryption will be broken (DVD-Audio uses a different method than video DVD's), it will be illegal to distribute information about doing this. Thus, people will have to pay more money for additional copies, services like CD-NOW that let you make custom CD's for a price, and purchase individual songs on MP3 at higher price. Fair use, as I described in the paragraph above, will be dead.
"Evil beware: I'm armed to the teeth and packing a hampster!"
Lex orandi, lex credendi.
If the manufacturer of your hard disk goes out of business and the drive crashes, it would be illegal for anyone to try to recover the data from your crashed hard drive.
The reverse engineering aspect of the DMCA is perhaps its worst feature. It becomes illegal for me to post a message in a news group which says "By the way, the XYZ device stores its data as straight text" Why is this so? Because the letter 'A' is never stored on a digital disk as a physical 'A' it is always stored as some sort of digital code. The DMCA makes it illegal for me to find out what that code is. The DMCA does not require that the encoding be difficult to break, the encoding can be completely straight forward it is still illegal for me to find out what that encoding method is.
I am the system administrator for a small company.
I change the root/administrator password, but before I can communicate the new password to my boss, I die.
The entire network must be junked because circomvention of the encrypted password is illegal.
A small business uses a commercial accounting package that supports password access for security.
The bookkeeper disappears after embezzling funds and changing the password.
Evidence of the crime is illegal to obtain because tools to decrypt the password are unavailable. (as an example, programs to decrypt QuickBooks passwords are currently available)
Are there other countries that have implemented their own versions of the DMCA?
How can this be fought on a country-by-country basis?
What about the part of most software LA's that allows you to make a backup copy of the disk. If the company put some sort of copy protection on the disk could you be sued for circumventing it to make a backup the company already said you were allowed to make? I apologize if that's not too clear, it's still early. Basically can someone say "Sure you can make a copy of the disk but if you circumvent our copy protection we'll sue your ass." and still have it be legally binding?
This is a bowel disruptor, and you are just full of shit. - Spider Jerusalem
This one is quite scary, with an encrypted signal leaving your computer to your monitor. See http://www.digital-cp.com/.
All new monitors have both analog/DVI inputs. Eventually new monitors will have only DVI inputs, and computers only DVI outputs. This will force countless computer upgrades, as making a box to decode the DVI to run to analog will be illegal under the DMCA. So, summarily we have;
1) Our right to "reverse engineer" stripped away form us,
2) Software that will control what we see and when we see it, taking away any last remnant of "first sale" rights,
3) People who can not afford to purchase "the right equipment" left further behind and denied access to what others are seeing and using,
4) As copyright law is "primarily defined by use" it will become accepted business practice to charge a "per use" fee for everything, including public domain material like "facts" (i.e. phone books)
5) Richard Stallman's right to read scenario becomes reality.
To say this comes from the pits of hell is an understatement.
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
A schoolteacher wants to show a small portion movie in school. A hypothetical protocol for a movie format has, as a condition of its licensing, the requirement that adverisements before the movie *cannot* be skipped. If anticircumvention technologies are illegal, the schoolteacher then cannot show the movie without first showing the ads.
(Aside: Would the mute button and turning off the monitor for the first part of class be considered a circumvention technology? Even if not, it's not a terribly satisfactory solution.)
Say, you own a Linux machine, and want to play a DVD you have legally purchased....
Although the current technology doesn't have this, consider a DVD set up with a "pay-per-view" lock. You purchase a movie, and then must buy a "key" that lets you watch it a fixed number of times. The company you purchased the movie from goes out of business. If nobody can circumvent the technology, they can't legally watch that disc ever again. Even if you say "so what, the consumer got what he paid for," libraries and archivists are in the same boat.
-Rob
I have a similar problem... Even though DVDs have a much wider acceptance rate in Asia than in North America, my company uses VCDs for promotional materials (even though DVDs would look better)--namely because of region codes.
This "region coding" phenomenon does more than just supposedly prevent piracy...it also prevents small-time, legal distribution of DVDs (say promotional materials that we've developed here but want to show in presentations over there) between regions.
And it also prevents someone like my boss from getting DVDs from Asia (where he is quite often--he just returned from 3 weeks there), even though he might need them.
I'm not a geek, I'm just a clever script.
"When it rains, it pours." --Morton's Salt
I moved from the UK to the US recently. There are a number of region-encoded DVDs that I would like to watch that will only be released in the UK (for example, UK TV programmes). The manufacturers are abusing the region-encoding system when they set it and have no intention of releasing DVDs in other regions.
Here are two examples, both related to making back-up copies. 1. I purchased several learning programs for my computer to be sed by my 7 year old son. Being a young boy he obviously does not handle the cd-roms with quite the care an adult would so there is a definate possiblity for one or more of these legally purchased discs to become damaged. Due to this I wish to make back-up copies for him to use on a daily basis. However these programs have copy protection implemented. Therefore I cannot create the archival copies that I am allowed under fair use as determined by the Supreme Court. 2. In a similar situation I have also purchased several DVDs which are intended for him to use as well. Again, boys being boys, I'm concerned that they will be damaged if he uses them normally day-in and day-out. Thus I would like to format-shift these movies onto VHS tapes, currently the only consumer recordable format with wide acceptance so my son can view these movies without having to have an adult help him with it (as well as viewing in rooms other than the one with the dvd player). Under the DMCA it is illegal for me to bypass either the Macrovision encoding to record directly from the player or to bypass the CSS encryption to use my computer to produce some other form of backup. 3. I legally purchased They Might Be Giants album 'Long Tall Weekend' from eMusic. This album is currently only available in the mp3 format. After buying the mp3s I made them into an audio cd so that I could listen to the album I fully paid for when away from my computer. Under the DMCA this could potentially have been illegal. If it was deemed that the mp3 encoding was an 'access control' then possesion of any mp3 player that allows you to convert them to a raw audio format would be a circumvention device. And of course these particular examples are representative of a vast number of possible cases involving these same issues. aron.
jello.
aka aron.
Note that I'm following here, because as a whole, my original post was triggering the lameness filter, oy!
Copy protection on CDs: Ok, this is a necessary evil to have to reduce piracy. However, as copy protection schemes move beyond current CD technology, people are finding that some older devices cannot read the disc due to the copy protection, and therefore can't use the media as purchased. In addition, it's been legal to make a backup copy of software for private use, but these copy protection schemes generally prevent the disc from being copied in it's entirity; if the disc is damaged, you can 'repurchase' a new one. However, there are sites out there that describe how to circumvent the copy protection to make such fair uses of the material, or small programs that do this, but by the DMCA, these are illegal. (Yes, these programs can enable further piracy as well, but that's not their only intent). The only solution for the fair use here is to spend more money to the media people, which is certainly not fair use anymore.
"Pinky, you've left the lens cap of your mind on again." - P&TB
"I can see my house from here!" - ST:
DCMA is illegal in several ways.
1) By tying access controls to "Fair Use" materal they are attempting to control piracy by controling access to the data. Although their intension were ok, the way they do this block all legitimate use of the data without designing your own decryption device. Some of the "Fair use" items consumers can no longer take advantage of without breaking parts of the DCMA.
a) Backing up videos
b) Using segments for lawful criticism or journalistic features
c) Sound bites
2) The DMCD is and end run around the materal EVER going into the public domain. Copyright is a time limited monopoly, but if this kind of legislation were to continue movies will never fall under public domain. The copyrights might expire, but with no LEGAL way to recover the data the companies still retain full control and monopoly status on the media.
Some of the falicies that people work under is that we are living in a consumer driven society. The multinational coperations are driving our societies not us. They know exactly what to do to maximize their profits. Would CD's ever have taken off if the media companies didn't kill sales of records by refusing to buy them back. Do you think we have any control now as the media companies try to kill off "Piratable" media formats one by one. What happens when they do this next time? When DVD-RW are cheap and easy to copy.... when will it stop?
"Those who do not know their rights are bound to lose them"
Well, I live in Canada, so the DCMA doesn't apply to me, but I still think that its completely absurd that a law like that could even get to the parlament, let alone be passed.
.class files on his account at the school, but all the source code files were on his hard drive at home. His hard drive crashed, it was completely unreadable, he thought he had lost all his work and would have to start over from scratch, then one the members of his group found a java de-compiler, they used it on the program, and it managed to perfectly reproduce the code, saving him from hours of re-coding the project. Under the DCMA this de-compiler would be considered illegal because it can be used to circumvent the protection compiled code provides, and it can be considered a tool for reverse-engineering.
A couple of years ago, one of my friends was taking a class in Java programming, we had a final assignment where we were supposed to form groups and write a program of our choice (our teracher had to approve the program idea first, of course).
My friend and his group decided they would make a final-fantasy style RPG, after working for about 40-50 (hes not the quickest coder in the world) hours, my friend had a working overwold engine, where he could walk around and it looked pretty good. He had the compiled
I run my TV picture from my Netstream decoder card to it, and when I want to watch movies on TV and I'm running from my Windows partition, there's no problem, that's just fine--I use Remote Selector to turn Macrovision off.
Sadly, there's no Linux equivalent Macrovision disabler--so when I use the Netstream Linux drivers, I get Macrovision. And to add insult to injury, the Linux "miniviewer" program--which lets you play the DVDs to your X session, in which I could watch them unmessedup--does not work for me. So in Linux, I can only watch unMacrovised movies--my Hong Kong imports and the special-edition films from MGM/UA, which does not seem to encode its movies that way.
--
Editor Emeritus and Senior Writer, TeleRead.org
However, in order to prevent you from pirating music with it (by plugging in the output of your music system to this thing's input), it has a copyright protection device on it, SDMI compliant. If it detects a SDMI watermark, it will record it but subsequently refuse to allow you to extract it to your own computer. Thus, it encrypts all recordings on it's internal hard drive so you can't just take the hard drive out, plug it into your computer, and extract the copyrighted audio. Thus, under the terms of the DMCA, this is an access control device.
So, having gotten a great deal on a device that records hundreds of hours of sound in a high-quality sound format, you decide to record your daughters band recital, where she has a very difficult flute solo. She pulls it off and brings tears to everybody's eyes, and the device captures it with ultra high fidelity.
Unfortunately, on the way out to the car, you drop the device. The hard drive and the recording is intact, but you cracked the circuit board the rest of the device relies on to communicate with a computer, and it's not ever communicating with a computer again. Unfortunately, the manufacturor has made it impossible to repair or move the hard drive to a new version of that device, because for security purposes, all of the devices use different factory-set encryption keys. (They don't want you to repair it, they want you to buy a new one.) The circuit board can't be repaired either, because you basically can't repair circuit boards that badly damaged.
If you could attach the device's hard drive to the computer, you could still extract your own recording, if it wasn't encrypted so you can't use the device to pirate. (It is safe to assume that somebody would come up with a way to decrypt the data if they can get at it, with brute force if nothing else.) It is, however, illegal to circumvent this protection measure, illegal to create a program that can decrypt this device's encryption format, and illegal to possess one. The DMCA makes it illegal to obtain your own recording because the access protection measure it is behind, put there to protect other people's recordings, is broken.
(Technically, you are allowed to break the protection under the exception it give you, but you must somehow do this without creating or obtaining a method or device to break the protection.)
If anyone wants to know how bad this can get, have a read of Road to Tycho over at the GNU website.
It talks about how reading books that someone else owns would be illegal.
Of course, if the school ever found out that he had given Lissa his own password, it would be curtains for both of them as students, regardless of what she had used it for. School policy was that any interference with their means of monitoring students' computer use was grounds for disciplinary action. It didn't matter whether you did anything harmful--the offense was making it hard for the administrators to check on you. They assumed this meant you were doing something else forbidden, and they did not need to know what it was.
Hi!
I'm the father of an eight-year-old with Down Syndrome. Annie is mentally retarded, and (like many Downs kids) she prizes the independence of watching videotapes on TV, and playing the companion CDs on her computer.
However, a mentally-retarded eight-year-old is nobody's idea of a "safe" user. She has proven, empirically, that crunchy peanut butter applied to a CD-ROM makes the perfect grinding medium for destroying the laser in the CD-ROM drive. She has proven, empirically, just how much popcorn you must stuff into an RCA VCR to make it eat the videotape. She routinely destroys videotapes and CDs.
I can address the problem by making copies--duplicating the media. Annie watches the copy, and when it is destroyed I just make another copy of the original. I can duplicate videos, CDs, and (through a client) DVDs. But--when I duplicate that content I am violating the DMCA.
An MPAA lawyer might ask "why not just buy another DVD? (or videotape or CD-ROM)?" For most media I could--but Annie particularly lives for Disney animation. And Disney, for years, has maintained the practice of only selling videotapes (and now DVDs) for a limited period of time. They will sell a movie, like Toy Story for a limited period of time. Once that title is removed from stores it is not available, anywhere, in any form. So the only way I can permit Annie to watch Toy Story is to duplicate the original, and let her watch the duplicate.
I have previously written to the EFF, offering to participate with Annie in any litigation regarding the DMCA. My offer still stands--I believe strongly in the legal benefits of intellectual property law, and am extremely conscious of the image that I project to my (other) children when I bootleg media for Annie. I'm violating the DMCA--and I know it. And they know it. And they know that violating the law is wrong.
All I want to do is let my little girl watch videos, achieving some pride in her self-sufficiency....
John Murdoch
jmurdoch@windgap.com
My TNT2 Ultra video card has TV-out. When I got it, I thought I could hook it up to my VCR and do some cheap video editing (since I have a capture card). Or I could hook it to my VCR to feed my big TV to play Quake (since my TV doesn't have video-in but my VCR does).
But the card has Macrovision, I suppose to defeat the criminal masterminds out there that would buy a $200 3D video card so they could make VHS copies of DVDs. Both of them.
Why put Macrovision on a stand-alone 3D card?
I have Quake. I bought the one with the mission packs ("The Offering"), and I have the case to it; however, I lost the Quake disc a while ago. Luckily, I made a backup of the directory structure in the disk (what luck!). Unfortunately, I didn't back up the ten audio tracks; the ambient music to Quake (composed by Trent Reznor; a must-have in any NIN-fan's collection!).
Now, I'm stuck with a choice. Should I give in, search for Quake (the Quake disc with WINQUAKE and GLQUAKE; that's what came with "The Offering")? Should I find someone who has the shareware demo disc (which has all 10 music tracks) and rip it to re-burn Quake? Or should I just search for the MP3's of the tracks (via FTP, Gnutella, etc. for a >140kbps collection) and re-burn Quake that way?
From what I've gathered, all of those methods fall under the "backup copy" clause of the license aggreement; however, it might fall under scrutiny because of the DMCA.
One thing really makes this thing ironic: the last time I had the disc, I was playing squake on RedHat 6.2! DAMN YOU LINUX, YOU MADE ME LOSE THE QUAKE DISC!!! (sorry, had to let out some steam.)
"Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer
As I understand it, Cue:Cat claims that the simple XOR scrambling they do of their output brings the device under the anti-circumvention provision. This points out a flaw in DMCA: it encourages content owners to be lazy; if (for example) ROT13 counts as "encryption" for anti-circumvention purposes, what's the incentive to use anything stronger? The end result is protection through legal intimidation rather than much more effective technical solutions.
I'm the sysadmin for a small local law enforcement agency. We have a proprietary custody management system that we've had for a very long time, and recently purchased some optical fingerprint capture stations using federal grant funds. One problem, though, was that the arrest data had to be entered twice; once into the fingerprint system, and once into the custody system. We asked both vendors to provide quotes to integrate the two systems, and the total cost was in the five figure range. It might not seem like a lot, but for a small department like ours that's a Godzilla-sized bite out of the budget.
It took two of us less than a month to reverse engineer the file formats and comm protocols on both systems and write our own interface in-house. Both vendors were hopping mad, but there really wasn't much they could do about it. We didn't break any laws, and we didn't violate any contract agreements we had with them.
Because of the DMCA, we'll probably be barred from doing anything like that again in the future. We can't risk having our software disabled, and we won't condone breaking a law. Not even a bad one. We'll just have to pay whatever amount of money the vendor demands, and siphon off the funds from the school district or the street department or whatever. This law is going to cost the taxpayer, one way or the other. They'll either get decreased service levels from government, or they'll pay more to get the same.
SDMI: needless to say, the ability of the music company to control how you can listen to your music, as well as forcing you to obtain a 'new' copy for a different device that you might want to play on, goes against fair use. Having a program that removes the protection but allows the music to be heard on any device you own will be illegal, though the final use is fair use.
HDTV: Broadcasters have been fighting to get into the HDTV standard a bit of data that prevents the ability for digital devices to record a show, even for purposes of time-shifting. Fair use in time-shifting has been upheld by the SC, but having a device that 'unintentionally' ignores this bit would be illegal.
"Pinky, you've left the lens cap of your mind on again." - P&TB
"I can see my house from here!" - ST:
If IP controls had been in effect from the dawn of media (records, tapes, etc..), I would not be able to transfer my beloved copy of Yogi Yoresson's "Yingle Bells" from it's origional 78 RPM record to CD. I would not be able to transfer my copy of "The Carl Stalling Project" from tape to CD (in which it is not available). I would not be able to preserve a friend's origional Edison cylinder recordings to CD.
If IP controls existed on books from day 1, I would not be able to read my 1885 edition of the 'Last Days of Pompeii', or my 1900's Harold MacGrath books, or almost half of my collection.
What this boils down to is this: If IP is locked to a specific media, the ability to read those media will eventually be lost and the IP will be lost to the public domain and to the general public. If you find a bunch of Edison cylinders, you may not be able to find a player, but you can build one fairly easily. If, in the year 2090, you find a bunch of DVD's, how will you be able to recover the audio and video from them? When the next big thing comes out for video, do you HAVE to buy all your favorite movies again, many of which may not be available?
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This is my SIG. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
I by a GeekBrand(tm) DVD player. Geekbrand is licensed and approved by the DVD-CCA DVD player. GeekBrand's CEO pisses off the DVD-CCA by failing to call them "your impereal majesties". All future DVD releases don't have the Geekbrand key on them.
This leaves me with a legally purchased DVD player that will not show any new DVD's. I am then forced to either buy a an "approved" player, or circumvent the encryption to view legally obtained movies on my legally obtained player.
Excuse me, reality interrupt.
First, you clearly haven't the faintest idea how much a quality designer costs per hour. I have worked for (among many others) grade-school textbook publishers. After spending thousands of man hours preparing camera-ready copy -- graphics, charts, graphs, layouts, formats, cross-indexing, etc. -- I assure you, the words are not the expensive part.
Second, one of the most popular applications used for precisely that kind of document is Quark which at least used to (dunno about now) had physical security. You had to put a dongle on your ABD chain, and if that frob got lost or damaged, you can kiss your documents goodby unless you're willing to pony up for another copy.
And if your copy of Quark or PageMaker decides not to let you access your document because it has decided that you might be a copyright infringer (not of your material, but of their software), suddenly you develop quite an appreciation for applications which crack the proprietary format of those documents and converts them to something useful.
Another example: I have been hired to do programming in Excel, which allows one to "protect" documents. I have been paid tens of thousands of dollars for single "Workbooks". If you were my client in such a case and discovered you had lost the password to a such a custom Excel document, how would you feel to be told that hiring a programmer to extract the code in such a document would be illegal.
And, Gosh, it would never happen that a secretary might quit a job in a huff and neglect to mention what password she used to "protect" her company's Excel spreadsheets or WordPerfect documents.
You know what? It's not illegal to break into your own home. It's not illegal to break into the home of someone else on their behest. It's not illegal to break into your own locked file cabinet. But the DMCA makes it effectively illegal to break into your own electronic home. You lock yourself out of a document, you might be able to card the door (dictionary attack on password), but you most certainly can't break down the door (parsing the document into another format).
In some places (e.g. NY) it is illegal to own lockpicks -- if you're not a bonded locksmith. I do not see any provision in the DMCA which allows for the virtual equivalent of locksmiths -- people who own cracking tools and use them within the law.
Imagine if you had put a document into a file cabinet and locked the cabinet and then, oops, lost the key. Imagine the locksmith showing up and saying "Hey, can I borrow a bobby pin? I'm allowed to pick locks, but not if I use any tool designed to do so."
Welcome to America under the DMCA.
-*- Any technology indistinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced -*-
I produce the Tv show for my local high school, and have recently become the target of macrovision. Sony has saw it fit to cause all their video cameras to immediately self-destruct upon trying to record macrovisioned material. However, using copywritten material for the news is explicitly protected as fair use. Unfortunately sony does not provide a provision for legal fair use. I eventually managed to get around the problem, but I see now very clearly that non-circumvention limitations would severely limit protected speech in my high school publications.
The firm I worked for switched from Wangs to PCs without warning. Suddenly, the previous two years' work was inaccessible. I got together with a friend, and we jury rigged a Wang drive to the PC. (This took cursing and more cable than I ever want to see again.) Then we figured out a way to transfer the Wang stuff as RTF.
What we did to save the department's work would now be illegal under the DCMA, because we circumvented both hardware and software to read our obsolete information.
I also have obsolete images on CD-Rom that were processed over 12 years ago. These images are not in JPG, or even in GIF, which existed 12 years ago. They are on a proprietary format, created by a company which has since gone out of business. By the provisions of the DCMA, I am breaking the law when I try to reverse engineer the format to veiw the information.
The librarian of congress granted two short-term exceptions to the DCMA, but one is library related, while the other is related to obsolete hardware. My hardware can see the CD-ROM, and can see the fact that the files exist, and that they take up size. No software exists to let me see the pictures my husband took. The actual negatives were destroyed in a flood. The company which created this monstrosity no longer exists.
Lest anyone think that only small companies go out of business, please read Business Week for 1984 through 1986, and then discuss Wang computing.
1. Consumer Protection. If you buy frozen food, you have the right to expect that the package will contain the food that is listed on the front. You also have a right to expect that food to be safe for humans to consume, if handled correctly. By prohibiting the direct handling of digital information, consumers cannot guarantee their own safety.*
2. Consumer Protection II. If you were to go to a restraunt, you can be confident that, if the food is prepared in a manner which is unsafe, it will be observed and reported by consumers. Prohibiting consumers from looking to see how digital information is prepared ensures that no consumer can ever be sure if the digital products they buy are safe.*
3. The US Anti-Trust laws prohibit any company from using a monopoly in one area to acquire a monopoly in another. Any company, or group of companies, with a monopoly on the encryption technology must also have a monopoly on all players and recorders. Nobody else can build them. This also means that they have a monopoly on what gets recorded as they can decide who can use a recorder and what for.
4. It has already been decided by the US courts that digital recordings and computer programs are forms of free speech, as talked about in the first ammendment. If you were to digitally record your own spoken words, using a program you had written, and played them back, also using a program you had written, you would be performing an illegal act, even though every single thing you did was protected.
5. If it is illegal to preserve the history that is being made today, then that history will certainly be lost. The past happens only once. Many recordings in the past have been lost for this very reason. This must be weighed against the claimed possibility of a loss which cannot be known. The law favours that which is beyond all reasonable doubt. The certainty of past experience would seem to meet that. The claims on which the DMCA rests do not.
6. Medical establishments will suffer unnecessary delays in the sending and receiving of computer-based medical information. As this is the method most likely to be used only in the most critical of situations, it is likely to result in injury or death. Companies have no legal right to protection from manslaughter charges, especially if the defect is known in advance and cannot legally be prevented from harm.
*By "harm", I'm including such possibilities as:
a) Defective hardware, which cannot legally be examined for such defects, where the defect is likely to cause an electical fire.
b) Sounds, introduced by the decryption process or deliberately added at the time of recording, which interfere with the correct functioning of the senses.
c) Computer "viruses" installed by accident or design which can infect other devices.
d) The inclusion of offensive, indecent or otherwise controlled or illegal material being present on the recording or introduced by the decryption device.
In all these cases, the ability for third-party to lawfully and independently ensure that a product is acceptable is mandatory in every single part of life except that of digital recordings. At no time has there been proven damage to any other industry as a result of such safety and quality assurance.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
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This is my SIG. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
Here is a real world example for the EFF.
This will require me to tell you all a little bit about my life:
I share a house with two other people, one other computer programmer and an air-conditioning repairman from Costa Rica I will call "John". John lives with us because, like us, he races mountain bikes, and we have built a little bike shop into the house for building and repairing race bikes. He's a good mechanic, but his english isn't very good.
We have a really good A/V setup, but no DVD player. Last week, John brought home a DVD player from Best Buy, and "The Matrix" on DVD. He hooked it into his T.V., only to discover that the picture was, as he put it, "shit".
I told John that the picture was screwy because of a technology called Macrovision, hidden inside his DVD player. It's purpose was to prevent him from criminally copying DVD's onto VHS. John said "but I don't want to do that, I just want to watch it!". I told John that the MPAA had assumed he was a criminal, and put Macrovision in his DVD player to stop his crimes. Because John's T.V. only has analog input, he cannot use his new DVD player. No one at Best Buy told him this. He has to buy a new T.V., which he can't afford.
John got mad.
Then I told John that buying a "Macrovision scrubber" to clean up the signal was against the law, as he would be owning a circumvention device. And I went on to tell him that when he went home to Costa Rica, he couldn't use any of the DVD's he bought there in his DVD player, because they had put a special code in the DVD's in Costa Rica so they wouldn't work, and he had to buy another DVD player when he went back there. If he tried to get around the code, he would be a criminal, because of a new law.
That's when John lost it. He got really mad. He threw the DVD player back in the box, took it back to Best Buy, and got his money back, but also got thrown out of the store for using his broken English to call them "Stupid Bastard Fucking People" - as he puts it.
I tried to calm John down, but I think in his culture they don't have the emphasis on restraint. When someone does something awful to you, you get angry, and you go yell at them. He doesn't understand that in America, faceless corporations do terrible things to people all the time, and you can't get mad, because all your anger will be wasted on some powerless teen-age clerk.
In America, the only way to do exert power is to spend money. That's why I donate to the EFF.
"John" now understands why the two rich guys he lives with only watch movies on VHS.
That's my real life example.
--
What happens when you outlaw guns
true story. I bought a %100 legal good to go copy of UT (Unreal Tournament). I insalled it and had a load of fun. Then as will happen the CD fell into the hands of my 5 year old son. Needless to say it did not survive the encounter. Being used to this I had made a backup copy of said CD. But it does not run. Well I then went over to the fine folks at www.megagames.com and did a end run around the copy protection. This is an example of a tool that lets me get fair use from the product I purchased the I think is legal in the context that I used it and the would be illegal under the DMCA. What do you all think?
Cypherpunks: Civil Liberty Through Complex Mathematics. Those who live by the sword die by the arrow.
In the comment process for this part of DMCA, I found the following letter. I was surprised that this issue doesn't get more play
Briefly put: data produced or stored by a software package may effectively become the property of the software company, if stored in a proprietary format.
My doctor was 'held hostage' for a few years by his records software. He couldn't change packages without losing his records, even though he hated the software he was using. He finally had to hire a programmer to analyze the his records and write a converter to a tab-delimited database, so he could import it into another software package.
Under DMCA, this would be illegal. The proprietary companies often call their proprietary formats a security measure (to protect patient privacy), so it really isn't a very big step to call this 'circumvention of a security feature'
I don't know about today, but apparently this was not uncommon a few years ago -- and we can expect it to come back if DMCA gives the software companies a big stick