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Australia Is Getting Its Own DMCA
biscuit nipple writes: "According to this article, our government snuck a little copyright law in under our noses. It just seems like a big moshpit of crap. Incidental copies of data, ie from an ISP, for transmission are ok, but deliberate copies (including proxy caches) are not." Also, "Libraries will have exemptions similar to the ones they already hold for distributing information but they will not be able to build up searchable collections, or provide material in competition with commercial providers." (Imagine if they applied that standard to books, too!)
Maybe this is just me, but with the open source world getting it's butt kicked more and more by DMCA's and UCITA, I'm feeling more and more that people who crack down open source reverse-engineering have no business using free software. Should there be clause added to the GPL and other open licenses that prohibits jerks like movie studios from benefitting from the same process they try to destroy? Should we tolerate movie studios getting their movies cheaply rendered with Beowulf and cheaply and securely promoted on the net with Apache and Linux when the very same people who create that software cannot legally watch those very same movies? Any opinions?
This is another brilliant example of corrupt law-makers not understanding how the world works combined with some old-fashioned short-sightedness.
Good laws should spring up to enforce social conventions and give them legitimacy. For example, if a society can agree that it entering people's houses and taking stuff is wrong, then the laws should reflect that. If we lived in a society which stressed the unimportance of having personal space or possessions, the law would probably reflect that. I admit Im probably being a little philosophical here, but consider the alternatives.
Laws should not (in my obviously not consulted opinion) be created to shape society, especially in ways that are non-intuitive to the average person, and benefit only a small minority. By this, I mean that the vast majority of people out there dont really consider it stealing to trade files and music with one another. That such copying is immoral has been propagandized by the software (remember MSFT circa early 1980s?) and entertainment industries for many many years. When this propaganda failed to sway the behaviour and sentiment of the public, they resorted to pushing through unfair laws to force us to obey.
I, for one, think that people, even in government, are mostly fair and intelligent. Companies will change or companies will fade. Once pocketbooks are hit, eyes will open.
Poster B: I doubt that'll happen. Once it gets down to a few, then suddenly freedom of communication will become a viable competitive factor for nations
I hope you're right, but I fear you're wrong. Once it gets down to a few, they may find that no one will trade with them, which would be a pretty strong incentive to adopt the DMCA.
When the Internet was first created, it was intended to be used to exchange the ideas and work of universitys and promote a better intellectual solidarity. Now it's intitial purpose has been thwarted, and it's subject to the whims of the commercial world. Governments pandying to the big companies propogate this, leaving the true enthusiasts/intellectuals behind. With the internet, we have an opportunity to do something that is unprecedented. We have freedom of speech, freedom to exchange and express ideas. We have anonymity, free from racial and social predjudices, where people can only judge us by what we say and think, not where we come from and how we look. Why must we abandon this to shallow commercialism. Thats what we have TV for, right?