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US Copyright Office Releases DMCA Advisory Report
snogwozzle writes: "The US Copyright Office's congressionally-mandated advisory report on the effect of the DMCA is in, and at first glance it doesn't look too good. They're against undoing the definition of temporary RAM buffer copies as possibly infringing (which Jessica Litman in Digital Copyright pegged as perhaps the central dirty trick in the DMCA as it opens the door to technical access control by publishers) is turned down, so is a first sale doctrine for digitally distributed works, and the DMCA's effect on fair use is called out of scope for the report. On the other hand, they think everyone should have a backup right for media bought in digital form, like we have for software." Keep in mind that this is only looking at the DMCA's effect on the "first sale doctrine" (once a work is sold to you, the copyright holder can't stop you from re-selling it) and on the legal right to make backup copies of a computer program.
Link? Note to /. editors. It would be nice if you put [PDF, 830k] next to that link so that those of us who are either on a modem (that's me) or who don't have Acrobat (I wish that were me, but there are too many important PDFs I *have* to read. Oh, also the parenthetical text made the story difficult to follow.) could ignore it.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Imagine if you are next told in your end-user license agreement that you can never resell the software you have purchased
Well, if it's OEM that's already true. This is of course, so counterintuitive, so contrary to the way that commerce has been conducted for thousands of years, that few people even consider the possibility.
I frequently come accross OEM Windows CDs at second-hand stores, flee markets, etc. The people who are selling them are usually not selling "warez" or other contraband. When the OEM clause is mentioned to them, they are usually shocked.
I'm squarely against Microsoft on this particular point, but let's not single them out. Instead, let's make make restrictions against selling parts of a system illegal. The OEM, however, should be able to disclaim liability in such cases. Otherwise we would have people re-selling cars without brakes and then trying to sue General Motors. I can't think of any other real pitfalls in making the OEM clause illegal.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
After tuning into the news for the last few years, with the insurection of geeks in schools, arrests via the DMCA, Bush's minimal support for stem cell research. The only thing I can see is a government who is trying to push it's intellectual community away. Once the members of this community get fed up with the laws that are being placed against them, the most logical course would be to move to a country which supports them. This is good for the government, because it is easier to control a ship of fools.
it's a sig, wtf?