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Does This Article Violate the DMCA?
An anonymous but adulatory reader sent in: "Grant Gross wrote a truly sterling editorial on NewsForge about the Felten SDMI-crack paper and how the RIAA's attempt to suppress it uses the DMCA in a most unhealthy way. Jim Tyre, one of Prof. Felten's attorneys, read this article and said, simply, 'Grant rocks.'"
At the end of his article he asks why the Major journalism outlets aren't sitting up and taking notice of the Constitutional atrocities that the DMCA are getting away with. Simple, this has been answered before in many other editorials. The Major journalism outlets (CNN for one) is OWNED by the same groups (Time Warner for one) that pushed the legislation through in the first place!
The point is the US thinks it can impose it's laws on individuals, companies,or entities that aren't actually within it's boundaries, ie: Helms-Burton, California's proposed new tax on satellites, etc...
You're using her as bait, Master!
But I think we must be a bit moderate in the discussion. It's not all bad! At least copyrighted media and windfall "fat cat" profits ensure lots of money spent on technical development and media development. And after all, you can sell anyone anything you like at any conditions you like, as long as you have a contract (and you are not a monopoly).
And most importantly: One great thing about the USA is that you can sue. It is easy enough, and you can win against vested interests. The existing liberties we have (you are allowed to tape a TV program onto your VCR) were brought about in the courts in the '60s and '70s.
It seems to me that the most important thing is to make people aware. I did a little unscientific poll last week, and asked 10 acquaintances who own a DVD player if they knew about the deliberate regionalisation that makes it impossible to, say, pick up a DVD in London and play it in Toronto. And guess what. Eight of them had no idea. Of those eight, four refused to believe me. Do the poll yourself and you will probably find the same ratios.
Then I asked them if they knew you are not normally allowed to play DVDs on a Linux machine. This time none of them knew.
As long as the industry manages to hide this stuff, we will never see free media. I do believe that as soon as Joe Public gets inconvenienced, DMCA or not, we will not see these infringements for long. So let's ge tthe word out there.
Michael
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BDOS ERR ON A:>
Well, this will likely be moderated as ``off topic'', but as it's another ``Rights Online'' case I am going to risk the karma hit, as I think this story is fairly important. I just submitted it as a story to Slashdot but for whatever reason it was rejected.
The Linux Freak site (no relation between the site and this story poster) has a rather interesting story about a good samaritan on the 'net who discovered a vulnerability on the Podeau Daily News web site, informed them about it along with tips on how to properly configure the software, only to find himself faced with felony charges. If you find your stomach tightening as you read this, feel free to contact Sheldon Sperling, the DOD prosecuting attorney behind this madness.
I'm surprised more 'noise' is not being made over this, especially since the First Ammendment seems to be a much valued part of the American psyche. Many if not most countries have no such laws.
One factor I see as having a part in the erosion of free speech is the increasing governance/regulation of our society. Laws designed to give cohesion/guideance to society often start as very simple broad statements, but as lawmakers try to 'expand' the definitions to cover all possible aspects it will naturally restrict freedoms. So you get the constitution giving wide freedoms, but over the years you get more laws like the DMCA erroding that freedom. Its allmost as if the lawmakers have lost confidence in the intelligence and commonsense of the people and so make laws telling you what you can and can't do. Also many lawmakers are greatly influenced by corporations, whose interests and desires can conflict with those of the people (as hinted at by the woman from the EFF in the article).
Another thing to stike me after reading the article is how common it is becoming to 'shoot the messenger'. Large bodies such as the SDMI seem to spend more effort on harassing people who point out flaws in their systems rather than improving their technology. And look at how full disclosure of security flaws is now being frowned upon in some areas after the code red incidents.
Is it better for people to go on in ignorance using a flawed system that they think works, or to correct those systems? Should the people trying to correct those flaws be praised or punished? And does society in the large really care about these restrictions unless it directly affects them? After all not many people vote, or complain to their elected representatives. If you don't try and tackle these things from the start you may find by the time you do it is too late.
A small outlet's going to have a hard time coming up with the cash to defend itself. While we believe code is speech and you can't cover the issues 2600 does without it, Big Media owns the public and the public is where all these wars are fought these days. If the public isn't bitching loudly, you can get away with pretty much anything in the courts and all you need is a shitload of money and more time than the guy you're sueing can spare. Your case may be completely without merit, but even the threat of it can shut someone up, SLAPP laws be damned and apparently juristiction be damned too.
As big corporations have both major parties in their pockets, the only way that this is going to change is if there's a mass voting out of both Democrats and Republicans in Congress, and frankly the public are sheep so that's never going to happen. I'm doing my bit (None of my guys got over 1% in the last election.) Are you?
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
There are many dangers in this arena. Lots of knee jerk reactions are forming this moment, and getting ready to post. Before many of them do, I'll say this:
Inventors and the companies for whom they've done the inventing own the rights to their unique achievement and should be protected in these intellectual rights; and individuals own the rights to their own observations and may not be restricted in their right to announce these observations; and by extension: reporters and the organizations for whom they report own their observations about any freely available information and should be protected in their reporting about it.
So the only question that remains is about how information is obtained. If it is obtained in harmony with the terms set by the owner of the information, then there can be no legal issue. If this isn't the law it should be. If it is obtained against the just terms of the owner of the information, they have every right to sue for the breach.
Conversely, if an organization sues because they're unhappy that their information has received negative press, their case should be thrown out of court. And if they've received protection for something that isn't truly an innovation, that protection should be nullified.
It might be a frightening notion to some of you, but as nice as good laws, courts, and patents are, they don't do much good in the instances where corrupt legislators pass bad laws that grant "rights" to some at the very real expense of others, where judges and juries rule in favor of culprits, and where patent clerks grant frivolous patents.
It should be readily apparent from this that there is nothing wrong with the system itself, but the people. Better laws and regulations won't fix it -- never have, never will. But they'll help, by not being another cause of failure. Better courts can't exist without better judges and better juries. But they can't do anything about crappy laws and patents. And better patents can't exist without better patent clerks. If they're not following the law now, no better law will necessarily fix the situation.
Asking for better laws and better courts and patents is just a way of asking someone else to make it all better so you can go back to playing Quake and fighting for first post. It won't work. But it'll make you feel very self-righteous and done with your citizenship for the day. If that's all you want, you're not really relevant to to the solution. But you make a fine road block.
Even worse, taking a shortcut, picking the easiest route and saying something like "patents suck, screw the inventors", or "the press should be free to report anything it wants, even if they stole the information", or "companies should be able to do and say whatever they want to protect their livelihood", or even "freedom sucks, screw the press" (this is an international forum after all) will only win small-minded converts and make it more difficult for Reason to prevail. The motivation of (and appropriate judgment for) those who know this and do it anyway should be clear.
The only hope available to you is to use the best tool evolution has afforded you: think. Really consider the issues. Formulate rational concepts about them. Discuss them. Revise these concepts whenever better reasoning is heard. Then advocate your reasoning. This is the most important political activity. Summon the courage to do it even when horribly outnumbered, and especially when those around you don't even realize they're propagating some popular but false bromide. Next: serve on any jury you can be part of. Use your wisdom there to quell the herd mentality, and see that justice is done. If you have it in you to fight such battles, and know how to do it without sacrificing your integrity: run for office. Last (in democratic republics): vote. In countries that are not democratic republics (i.e. you have the right and means to participate and the real workings of the government are codified in law): leave. They're only benefitting from your presence at your expense. Life is better where men and women are free to converse, and to own the fruits of their labors -- both the manual and intellectual kinds.
It won't happen overnight. And it may not happen in our lifetimes. But life and liberty are worth having and happiness is worth pursuing. Don't you agree?
-B...
I just want to say, I think the DMCA is the scariest thing Congress has done in a long time. It's being abused so much, it's begining to interfere with freedom of speech, as with this incident. If people would just apply the standard of criminal intent when judging DMCA violations, it wouldn't be so bad, but they don't. The result is that legitimate work which is in no way intended as a criminal act is treated as one.
RIP, first amendment. You were loved.
I'm the stranger...posting to
Well, the article does actually use the word allows (i.e. present tense) and DeCSS most certainly does allow users of Linux to decode and play DVDs today. I use it for that myself, although the players are still comparatively primitive. ISTR that even at the time that the suit over DeCSS was started there was experimental UDF support in the 2.3 kernel series, so Linux users could watch DVDs, albeit not on a production kernel. And there are actually some DVDs that are in ISO9660 format and not UDF and thus are readable under what was available on a stock Linux system at that time. My copy of The Matrix, for instance, is an ISO9660 disk.
Furthermore, the comment about "decode (not play)" is a complete red herring. The disk must be decoded before it can be played (duh!), so your distinction between the two is completely bogus. This is actually the complaint about the DMCA. By wrapping together their copy protection scheme (decoding) with the steps necessary to use the product (playing), and by making tools to break the copy protection scheme illegal, content providers thus place unreasonable restrictions on noninfringing use- like the effective inability to watch DVDs under Linux.
There's no point in questioning authority if you aren't going to listen to the answers.