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."

Comments

No ...

[pb]

This is a case of customs intercepting what they perceive to be illegal (mod-chips and whatnot); however, it's disturbing that they don't know or check what the merchandise is, and that they do this under the DMCA, the most far-reaching and untried piece of crappy legislation since the CDA.

However, it might work to everyone's advantage if you pursue this; I would love to see the DMCA overturned, and I'm sure the EFF would too. Therefore, I'm sure many people would be happy to contribute time, effort, or money if you have a case and can pursue it. (it's hard to sue the gov't; I wonder why ...)

UPS blocking the appeal?

[achbed]

Can UPS block the appeals process by not giving out the name of the port director? This makes an appeal impossible, because the appeal has to be filed with that person. I would think that UPS could be held liable for something here, since they are essentially blocking a citizen's right to an appeal.

As for the customs rules mentioned, if it was "piratical" it should be siezed and held by customs, not returned to the sender. Something sounds extremely fishy here.

This was a violation of procedure

[Fair Use Guy]

I recently conferred with an undergrad who was importing some obviously bootlegged software CDs from the Orient onto campus for resale. Customs intercepted a particularly large order at one point and held it on DMCA grounds. Here was the sequence of events:

• Order was seized and the recipient was notified
• The recipient was requested to either send the items back, or to sign an affadavit that the items were legal in this country
• The recipient signed the affadavit and the "affected parties", the publishers who had put the CDs on their Customs block list, had three (3) business days to contest the affadavit
• The publishers did nothing, and the shipment went through

The USPS tends to act more in accordance with the proper procedures, and the private shippers tend to discourage them to avoid the trouble and added costs. So if you're going to order something illegal from overseas, the Postal Service is usually the way to go.

/fug

Cable vs. knife

[BlowCat]

Being neighter addict of games nor user of proprietory software, I would normally vote against articles involving so called "piracy" and game machines, but this article raises a very important issue. Should the customs decide which cables are allowed to be imported based on the probability that they will be used illegally? I strongly believe that the notion of "software piracy" is wrong, because the so called "pirates" don't kill or rob anyone - the worst thing they do is depriving artists of some artificial monopoly that the society grants them to stimulate their creativity.

Banning cables is even worse - it creates a notion of "pirates' tool", something tangible that can be used as a "weapon" by "bad guys" and should be kept out of the country.

Isn't it strange that I can import a knife but I cannot import a cable?

That explain the postal delay...

[jsse]

That'd be totally unrelated to this thread, but it matters to the case so please bear with me.

I live in Hong Kong and I found unexpected delay in postal services recently(around a year or so, even before 911). I do a lot of mails/packages back and forth US(has a lot of friends in US) and the time it takes seems to be lengthened to at least 2-3 times than normal. My X'mas present to one of my friend in US just arrive yesterday, but I shipped it before X'mas.

Until you bought it up I noticed that the time it took for computer equipment seems to be taking much longer. A friend of mine who was carrying a box of modems with cables was being strip-searched at the US custom.(he thought it's due to 911, but it's rather unusual to be detained 4 hours...)

I was wondering, does US customs pick on all packages from and to Hong Kong? I asked several ebay sellers they said it takes unusual long time to delivery goods to me.

Exactly how many time, money and resource US Government is spending on monitoring citizens' mails?

Anyone would kindly tell me?

P.S. to original poster, have you tried UPS, DHL or Fedex? Did they reject your goods like USPS?

Re:How silly

[ichimunki]

Access to entertainment? When gene and medicine patents promise to keep biotech corps in double digit profits for years to come, while medical care expenses for the average citizen continue to go through the roof?

Access to entertainment? When only ten major corporations own nearly the full spectrum of visible, audible, and legible media for informational purposes as well as amusement?

Access to entertainment? When increasingly patented "technologies" are being used to generate our food supply, from medications for animals, to fertilizers, herbicides, pesticides, when the seeds themselves have become "intellectual property"?

Access to entertainment? When the government provides for arrest and confiscation in matters surrounding nothing more significant that copying stuff without permission?

Access to entertainment? When the government itself invests heavily in technology "licensed" from firms more willing to rely on tech-secret laws (i.e. DMCA) to keep problems under wraps than they are to truly eliminate security issues on their own? When national security depends on this technology?

At least for now? It's already the case that these laws cause "real" harm to society, and hold the potential for a lot more damage to be done.

Re:Customs Official or UPS?

[MrResistor]

As much as I hate them, that's exactly what Lawyers are for. Most of the time you don't even have to have one, just the threat of talking to one is usually enough to get their attention and try to work things out with you.

Also, filing a complaint with your states Better Business Bureu is surprisingly effective, and can usually be done online.

If you really want to be a dick, sue them in small claims court naming the President, CEO, and local sysadmin as defendents. In CA lawyers aren't allowed in small claims court, and if you don't show up you automatically lose.

It's probably a little late now to do any of these, but worth filing away for future consideration.

You Make a Good Point (but You're Wrong)

[FreeUser]

It is terrible to see this effect from the DMCA. Basically it is destroying technical education in the US. Long term this could be a very bad thing and just turn the US into a nation of consumers and not producers,

You are absolutely, 100% correct up to this point, and indeed make an excellent point too many people overlook.

However:

which will eventually destroy the market that the DMCA backers are trying to protect.

Or I could be totally wrong.

Yes, and here's why:

The DMCA backers have absolutely no interest in protecting the computer industry, or indeed any of the markets which will be destroyed by the DMCA over the next five or ten years. Indeed, they could really care less (and in some cases would welcome such destruction, particularly of the internet and computer-related products that allow such easy, and to them unwholesom, copying).

They are solely interested in protecting our Bread and Circuses, in particular the Media and Copyright Cartels that have diluted and dumbed down our once-rich culture into mass-disseminated least-common-denominator pop.

If you will recall from your history, the Bread and Circuses industry can survive, even thrive in an economy which has otherwise completely imploded, and will generally continue to do so until the entire civilization falls and is destroyed. I refer you to the last centuries of the Roman Empire as an historical example (by no means unique, but certainly the most widely known example of this), when leaders would choose to use their distribution networks (ships) to ship sand rather than desperately needed food or other goods, for the sake of the games.

The DMCA was designed to protect the entrenched media interests by outlawing much of basic science and engineering, and indeed much of the technology, integral to continuing the "information revolution." They know this, we know this, and they just don't care, so long as their business models are protected. Indeed, as things get worse people are likely to seek more escape, not less, so they can reasonably expect to see their profits soar as a result.

The DMCA specifically allows R.E.ing

[yerricde]

Reverse engineering is supposedly covered under Fair Use, right?

In fact, the letter of the DMCA (17 USC 1201(f)) makes an exception to its anti-circumvention provisions for acts of reverse engineering "necessary to achieve interoperability." (The reasoning in the 2600 case was flawed, and it's in appeals right now.)

Re:Not a normal Serial Cable

[ftobin]

I don't get how this cable is a copyright breach, though

If the cable has a proprietary interface that Sega holds a patent for and this company in Hong Kong is making them without a license then it is clearly a violation.

You have clearly not answered the question. What was asked was where there is a copyright violation. Copyright has nothing to do with patents, except that the whole concept is muddled together under the vague idea of intellectual property.

eBay hates them too!

[TheLocustNMI]

I know for a fact, because i was attempting to sell my DC with the cable, and they came back with a "illegal materials" notice, so i took off a note I had about some copied games on the auction listing -- thinking that was what they were after! So, i reposted, with the cable still on it, and they canned my account! I had no idea you could copy games with it! Oh well -- so they are getting a bum rap, methinks...