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Serial Cables Illegal Due to DMCA?
Colin McMillen writes "I've recently had an
interesting run-in with the DMCA... apparently, US Customs has rejected entry of a PC<->Sega Dreamcast serial cable into the US, supposedly due to copyright violations. This cable was to be used for Dreamcast programming for the Real-Time Systems class offered at my university. This seems to be a clear case of the DMCA abridging a perfectly valid educational use of a perfectly legal piece of hardware."
Never having seen a dreamcast, I bet it has a non-standard connector, so a nice pre-fab cable would be better. However, in light of this totally lame event... open pandora's box again.
Method of processing duck feet
What difference is there between the function of a Dreamcast Coders' Cable and that of a floppy disk? Both can be used for transferring both legal and illegal material. It seems somewhat wrong that customs should assume that you're going to use something illegally, especially when the primary use is perfectly legal.
They let Richard Reed onto an airplane, but they take away your serial cable.
Someone you trust is one of us.
btw, there's a k5 story about this for those who care.
This seems to be another UPS fuckup... According to the Customs dep, you're supposed to get 90 days to apeal these types of things, but UPS said there was "no way." that anything can be done.
Asside from that, I think I speak for everyone when I say I find this a little desturbing. I mean, I'm sure Lik Sang has a 'reputation'... but the things are just wires for god sake.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
...why, with so many other, more important things to be worrying about, the customs officials are watching for serial cables? Ever hear of priorities, Mr. Customs Man?
Jeez...
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
...for John Byrd actually, up until February 2001, when Sega of Japan dropped the axe on the Sega of America Third-Party Developer Technical Support (DTS). I have contacted him about this article, and maybe he can say a few words (however, he does not work for Sega anymore, so I don't know what effect his words will have).
:(
:(
Truth be told, when we were at Sega, we were following the amateur programmers, and we knew that there was no way that we could stop them (not that the youthful hackers in us really wanted to). I don't know if this will help you any, but Sega of America actually ran a mailing list at one time for amateur VMU (Visual Memory Unit) programmers - this may be useful in establishing some credibility that Sega was encouraging development. Of course, then again, there was usually a difference between what SOA and SOJ wanted.
Although I do not know where the links are for making the cables, it is possible to do so (and I believe that somebody else pasted the link). The only catch is finding the Dreamcast serial port side. Rather than ordering from Hong Kong, you might want to see if you can find the Japanese ISDN cable, which is the real version of the cable you are looking for (I have one at home). I don't remember the part number, but I can look it up tonight. That and a null-modem adaptor, and you're in business.
Absolutely rediculous what is going on. I wonder when my homeland of Canada will begin to follow suit.
Disclaimer: I speak only for myself, and not Sega of America, Sega of Japan, John Byrd, or any other current or former Sega employee.
-- Joe
If US Customs is attempting to "protec" a companys interests via the DMCA by preventing import of a device that enables activity the company explicitly approve of, that should be a real eye opener for corporate friendly politicians.
hmmmm... a patent covering the serial transfer of data over a twisted pair of wires accompanied by control lines limiting bandwidth in a controlled fashion.
Sprinkled with enough multisyllabic buzzwords, the most obvious and time proven techniques can be novel.
With the guiding principle of law being innocent until proven guilty, they must do no such thing.
Cheers,
Ian
Anyway, don't you need a license from Sony to develop software for the dreamcast? If you don't have one, how is wrong to restrict access to a tool that's only purpose is do development, even if its academic.
bzzt...WRONG!. You can't be prohibited from downloading software you wrote to a piece of hardware that you own, as long as you don't circumvent any encryption to do so. That is the use the guy has for the dreamcast.
Want to see every step I took to start my company? http://www.rowdylabs.com/blogs/pitchtothegods
I'm sorry, but this is just a lame excuse. Following this line of thought, they had better hurry up and BAN importation and construction of WLAN cards. These clearly are a violation of the DMCA because they permit people to drive around in cars with laptops and tap into corporate networks to steal copyrighted and private materials. In fact, maybe they should just ban laptops and automobiles altogether.
The single biggest problem is that they provided *NO METHOD* for him to discuss the case with the person who made the decision to reject entry of his shipment. If there were even reasonable controls in place to make sure innocent people weren't harmed by this law, it might not draw such anger from. But the DMCA is probably one of the biggest reasons for campaign finance reforms outside of Enron and Microsoft. It clearly was not well thought out, and is an attempt to prevent potential crimes by eliminating the tools with which they are committed, at the obvious expense of legitimate use of those tools.
GreyPoopon
--
Why is it I can write insightful comments but can't come up with a clever signature?
I thought you guys had a constitutional safeguard against this sort of behaviour?
Barely. Don't get me started on the marginal constitutionality of drug-related seizure laws. This is a special case though; we're not talking about search and seizure of property, we're talking about customs controls. Customs has the responsibility (and power) to control what enters the country. If you're going to be importing something, you've got to be willing to let customs have a look at it. If they don't like it, they won't let it in. It's like that everywhere, I think.
What does Sega having or not having a patent have to do with this? The DMCA is all about circumventing an access control measure to a copyrighted work, and doesn't really care about what Sega's patents are. If they want to go after the company manufacturing them for patent infringement, fine (assuming they have a patent), but that has nothing to do with this issue.
What we have happening here is that an item is being forbidden to enter the country because it MIGHT be usable for bypassing an access control to a copyrighted work. The DMCA makes no distinction about whether the item may have other leagl uses. Seems like a lawsuit is in order against the US customs department, and this has some really strong legal ground to stand on.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
This conversion is a very common issue with a lot of products, schematics and chips to handle the adjustment are all over the net.
Elbows writes:
Actually, yes- I have seen some truly innovative means of connecting serial interfaces, including some really ancient IBM technology that is truly bizarre- looks like some sort of electroshock torture device, but apparently works really wellThe USPTO has been pretty lax about this sort of thing, pretty much pay your money and get a 'rubber stamp' approval without any real review.
I do not deploy Linux. Ever.
How the hell can you call your country the land of the free when your not even allowed to import a piece of wire. And no, don't give me any bull shit stories of IP protection. It is a bit of wire, with at the most a couple of components soldered on. Its not a nuke, a vile of anthrax or cuban cigars (Why the _hell_ are these banned in a free country???) its just metal, and plastic. Ok, maybe you could strangle someone with it - but for crists sake, you let 12 year olds by automatic weapons. ROFL serves you all right.
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
Ok, I'll bite too.
The whole four paragraphs in parent are simply horse shit. I can't believe people have been conditioned to the point of accepting whatever politicians which are bought by special interest groups have slapped to them.
Yes, research is allowed. You are free to research any of your own creations. Feel free to investigate the laws of nature. Feel free to experiment to come up with different ways to travel. Feel free to write software, create art in original ways. None of that is illegal.
Wake up, man. All researches are based upon previous knowledge and discovery. Imagine if all data structures and algorithms have been patented/copyrighted. Feel free to write software without violating someone's patent. How are you gonna do that? My wife is a Ph.D and working on early cancer detection research, based on some hereditary genes. And guess what, genes and the process of splicing/cutting/purifying/etc are all patented. The whole process of the research violates someone's patents on more than half of the steps required. Even the result analysis process is patented. Go figure.
The DMCA isn't about patents in that way, it's about copyright. That guy can't have his serial cable because he could use it(not bloody likely) to circumvent the copyright protection on music CDs and (possibly, depending on interpetation), dreamcast disks.
That's the reason the DMCA is such a bad law. It bans anything (ANYTHING) which can be used to circumvent copy protection.
It's like banning(and making it illegal to sell or distribute, or information on how to create) butterknives because they could be plunged into a persons chest. Stupid. Immoral too.
It's been a long time.
er, guns do hurt people. That and hunting are indeed their primary purposes.
Unsurprisingly there are fewer gun deaths per capita in those democracies where gun use is restricted.
Gun laws won't stop the sole loony with an illegally owned gun doing the rampage thing. But such loons aren't the ones responsible for the amazingly large number of people who get shot in the US every year.
However you may feel about gun control, comparing them to a device that may have application in unauthorized copying of software is ludicrous.