EFF Seeks Wise Words And Party Goers

liquide writes "The DMCA affects every American, indeed, every human on the planet. The problem is that the average person doesn't realize this. EFF wants the input of our supporters to come up with slogans that will raise the mainstream consciousness to the destructive effects of the DMCA and inspire us all to continue the fight for free expression. Put on your thinking caps, summon the creative muse and submit ideas for slogans and 'soundbytes' to help us fight the DMCA. If your idea is chosen, you will win your choice of vintage EFF T-shirts. Send your entry to slogan@eff.org. Thanks for your help." And Seth Schoen writes: "The EFF, Linux Journal, and Free Dmitry activists are pleased to present a combination going-away and birthday party for Dmitry Sklyarov. (According to Reuters, today is Dmitry's 27th birthday.) The party is Wednesday evening in San Francisco. (LJ article, Craigslist post.)"

Comments

Quickie Caption

[darylp]

Deadliest
Machine of
Corporate
America

Hey, so I drunk too much coffee today!

Re:Quickie Caption

[renehollan]

Destruction of
Media
Convenience for
Americans

Great Artists Peep Show

[gizmo_mathboy]

How's this for an ad campaign idea:

A beautiful closeup of the Mona Lisa. Then a loud clang is heard as a steel shutter closes down over the scene.

The next is the opening page from a Tale of Two Cities (or some other text that the general public might get if they only read the first few words). Then another loud clang as another steel shutter blocks the view.

The camera pulls back to show a row of people standing/sitting at peep show booths. They are furiously pumping in coins to see more of a work of art or the next page in a book.

Just a quick seed of an idea for how the DMCA lets an artist/publish control how the content can be viewed (Region coding, protective encryption,etc). It's just a worst case scenario that all content will become one, giant peep show for consumers.

Re:Great Artists Peep Show

[Dyolf Knip]

Here's another one along those lines.

Show a couple at a quiet, candle lit dinner for two at home. There's some romantic music playing in the background. They get up and get to work on something more entertaining when the music stops and starts demanding that you insert another 50 cents to continue playing, thus totally destroying the mood. Or it claims they forgot to pay their 'Music Bill' for that month, which is more like what is actually going on.

Or a Superbowl Sunday, crowd of guys watching it, beginning to froth at the mouth at the last 30 seconds. At which point the TV switches to a test signal and demands that you feed it more quarters and you see the guys franticly trying to get their wallets out.

Re:Great Artists Peep Show

[LordNimon]

The problem is that these works are no longer copyrighted, and therefore the DMCA will never apply to them. Your idea is an exaggeration of the truth. What we need to do is show the public some real truth, something that WILL happen.

Re:Great Artists Peep Show

[Pseudonym]

That's what you think.

OK, maybe that's true in the case of the Mona Lisa et al, but did you know that in most countries (it's true in Australia, possibly the US too) you must obtain authority of the publisher to perform basically anything written for the stage longer than 20 minutes long, regardless of when it was written, when copyright on the specific printed edition has not expired?

So if you want to perform an oratorio by Johann Sebastian Bach, you have to get permission and most likely pay royalties, even though J.S. Bach died in 1750, unless you can find a score which is over 70 years old. (Thanks to Sonny Bono et al, that would be 90 years in the US, if US law operates under the same rules for exercising the grand right.)

This has been true for years, BTW. Ask your local school music teacher about copyright some time.

Imagine...

[renehollan]

...only being able to rent your movies, music, thoughts and ideas: welcome to the DMCA.

Not slogans, but examples

[dschuetz]

I just sent this off to EFF. Any further elaborations (or conversions to slogans)? Anyone?

----------

Hi...this isn't really a slogan, per se, but some notes I put together for a "call to arms" that I never was able to finish. The big thing I was trying to accomplish was to point out the things that *could* be possible, and legal, and un-circumventable, if SSSCA were passed or if DMCA were to remain unchallenged and unchanged.

The thrust of it was:

"Well, that sounds bad, but it'll never affect me, anyway."

Oh yeah? Have you ever:

• Bought or sold an album at a yard sale? This could make that useless -- they could buy the CD, but wouldn't be able to play it until they "registered" it, for a charge, with their own CD player.
  
• Copied a CD for use in the car? This could make that impossible, unless you buy a new copy specifically coded for the car player.
  
• Taped a pay-per-view show, that you paid for, from cable, to watch next week? This could make that impossible, by remotely turning off the record button on your digital VCR or TiVo.
  
• Copied a song from CD to an MP3 player? This could make those devices illegal, by ensuring the CD wasn't readable by a computer or that the MP3 player wouldn't play anything without a special code.
  
• Loaned a friend a copy of the big game he missed? This could make that impossible, by coding all your time-shifted tapes to your own VCR, and refusing to play those on other systems.
  

And if you try to get around any of these restrctions, you're subject to imprisonment and/or a fine of up to a half million dollars. If you even *think* about how to get around these restrictions (and discuss it in a public forum), you could be subject to imprisonment and/or fines.

[most of these things are typical, real-world uses of technology that people take for granted and could lose with further format changes (protected by DMCA) or technology restrictions (mandated by SSSCA).] I then wanted to highlight the fact that many of the "unthinkable" things are already happening, in one way or another:

And, lest people believe that "well, they'd never do *that*," here are some things that the big corporations are already doing:

• "They'd never force you to relicense / re-register something you've already paid for." Windows XP already does this -- try deleting it from one computer and moving it to another, it won't work until you re-register with Microsoft.
  
• "They'd never create a DVD (or CD) that you could only play a few times." DIVX DVDs tried this -- even if you paid the full cost to "unlock" a DVD, if you then GAVE that DVD to a friend to keep, forever, they'd have to re-pay themselves, even though you no longer own the DVD. The product, however, failed. SSSCA would require manufacturers to include features in all hardware that could be used to bring that back, without warning or recourse.
  
• "They'd never sell DVDs configured so you are forced to watch them in the way the publisher wants -- if I want to skip a scene, I just hit a button..." This is already happening. The 6th Sense DVD forces you (and it's difficult to get around) to watch previews first, for example. Many DVDs don't allow you to skip the FBI copyright warning. They could easily include ads on the DVD that you have no way of bypassing.
  
• "They'd never make CDs that you can't copy to MP3." They're already selling these. They're labelled as CDs, but fail to conform to the official CD-Audio specifications, so they fail in many legitimate devices that should be able to play CDs, like DVD players, computers, or video game consoles. And good luck getting the clerk at Best Buy to refund your money when it plays in *their* CD player.
  
• "They'd never try to stop me from selling used software I no longer need." Microsoft has a regular policy of forcing eBay to yank any auction featuring Microsoft products. You buy a computer, it comes with Windows XP, you don't want XP, so you sell the CD on eBay (without ever even installing it), and Microsoft makes them stop the auction, with no recourse to the seller.
  
• "They'd never force me to open my system or home so they can look for copied material." The RIAA has tried, already, to get legislation passed which would indemnify them from any damages caused by their remotely hacking into people's computers to look for pirated songs. They wanted an exemption to Computer Crime law to make it legal for them to, essentially, perform illegal search and seizure (and even destruction). More power than even our own government has. Fortunately, the language was dropped from the final bill.
  

Hopefully, these examples will help inspire new ones, and maybe quick-n-easy things that can be used in an interview or in a mailing.

Re:Not slogans, but examples

[renehollan]

And, lest people believe that "well, they'd never do *that*," here are some things that the big corporations are already doing:

It's even worse than this.

People think that even if "they" do do that, it will not be to *them*, but to someone who "deserves" it. The problem here is that people accept the law as a blunt instrument to be wielded when an appropriately fine one is not available (because the particular circumstance was excempt under the more specific law) -- can't have criminals going free on technicalities, can we?

I suspect that a more effective, though certainly more radical, campaign, would be to ask, "If you don't think they would do this, but do think it would be wrong if they tried to do it to you or me, would you think it wrong if I used whatever force is necessary, including killing them, to stop them?"

Place it in concrete terms: "Do you think it's acceptable, if regrettable, to kill someone who refuses to stop stealing your stuff, if they're armed and threatening? Is a copy you made for later viewing, yours, or not? If someone tried to kidnap you for simply making the copy would you not resist with all your might?"

Clearly, if someone thinks that a law is absurd, unconstitutional, and would not be applied in practice, they should not reject the notion of fighting it if it is applied (yeah, we know it is "when" and not "if"). Anyone who objects over illegal resistance (and let's be clear: we're talking about killing police who try to arrest you for telling someone how to timeshift a movie -- this either gets you "off", for defending your constitutional rights, or fried in the electric chair), should be pointed to the Constitution (in the U.S.A., anyway): you are acting legally -- they are the criminals here.

I suspect that most people accept blunt law because it allows the "legal" arrest of miscreants that would otherwise skate on the thin edge of legality and still do stuff most would disaprove of. "They" know this... that's why they file charges against "hackers", but back off when dealing with "respectible" university professors (i.e. Felten).

The danger of threating deadly force, even in defense, is that it makes one appear unstable, and more in the catagory of "undesirable". And I am not advocating that one do this unless they are quite prepared to live with the consequences. Many would advocate a passive approach, but I am not one to martyr myself (timeshift the movie and willingly let myself be arrested). At some point, if you're not willing to use force to defend your rights, others will use force to take them away.

I suspect that a two-pronged approach, with numbers of passive "victims" mounting and the odd sensational skirmish is what it will take to reverse this frightning trend.

Of course, any such forceful approach, without the backing of law or decree means that you are interpreting the law yourself: you are a vigilante. How that is perceived depends largly on timing: with large numbers of martyred time-shifters rotting in jail, this might be an acceptable tactic. I raise the possibility now, and not when we are seeing widespread arrests because, like any forceful tactic, it has to be thought out very carefully in advance so as to have the greatest liklihood of apparent legitimacy when it is employed.

How about...

[Snafoo]

'Crack ROT-13, Go To Jail, Where ROT-13 is Defined as f(x) = x + 13 mod 26, for a=1, b=2...z=26'?

It's a one-line formula; quite catchy, really.... :P

Well, for a slightly different take...

[msouth]

..."Stop feeding the mouth that bites you. Boycott RIAA and MPAA products."

'cept I don't think there are many people that believe in it enough not to buy the LoTR DVD.

Hey, now THERE's an idea--maybe we as geeks (which might be enough of a market segment (for LoTR) to be paid attention to) start a campaign to ask whoever is going to put out the DVD not to put any of these annoying "we have decided that every time you put this in you will watch the following" sections. And if they don't comply, don't buy it.

Or would that be too much like standing up for what we believe in instead of just ranting about it?

hardly any comments?

[Splork]

this hardly got any comments? did it show up in a category that's on the default front page?

Re:hardly any comments?

[Dyolf Knip]

YRO articles show up on the main page, but not all of them; this one didn't. But it's one category that I keep in a slashbox so I always see them.

Re:hardly any comments?

[Splork]

i recently updated my slashdot profile preferences and started seeing these previously missed articles. sadly many others who would like to see them are probably missing them as well due to not bothering to try and customize stuff. ah well, i didn't write the shit.

The congress shall have the power...

[kesuki]

The Congress shall have Power ...
To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for
limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their
respective Writings and Discoveries.

Afterall what part of 'Limited Times' does 'forever' fall under.
and what part of 'to Authors' does 'Recording industry cartel' fall under.

Just submitted that... What better source than the constitution... Wait isn't it illegal to redistribute the constitution under the DMCA?
It is if they include it on a DVD and I'm sure that one of the 10,000 movies on DVD has a reference or a shot of the constitution.

Short, Quick Slogan...

[sconeu]

Think you own that CD you bought? Think again, thanks to the DMCA.

First they came for ... Rev Martin Niemoller,

[Martin Spamer]

Two ideas based on the words of Rev Martin Niemoller.
http://serendipity.magnet.ch/cda/niemoll.html
http://www.hoboes.com/html/FireBlade/Politics/ni em oller.shtml

---

First they came for the Crackers,
I didn't speak out,
I wasn't a Cracker,

Next they came for the Hackers
I didn't speak out,
I wasn't a Hacker ,

Next they came for ...

---

Rev. Martin Niemoller, jailed for Preacher free speech, Germany 1937.

Dmitry Sklyarov, jailed for Preacher free speech, USA 2001.

Civil Dosibedience (slightly off topic)

[argoff]

With copyrights it's not only easy, but is relatively low risk and does not require any violence at all. And I would argue that it doesn't even wrong creators and artists, it's not like it's plagiarism or that market share is some kind of moral right, or that copyrights even benefit artists more than publishers and distributors.

And when they throw the book at people who make coppies, it's likely to generate more and more backlash. I really think we should attack copyrights haed on, instead of the DMCA, because this is where the root of the problem is. As long as you have copyrights people are going to try to extend and secure them, hence the DMCA.