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SSSCA Hearing
larsoncc writes: "According to this article on CNET, a Senate Bill will likely force the issue of adding copy protection to hardware. They are giving the industry 12 to 18 months to come up with a voluntary solution to the "problem" of copies, and if not... Well, you just have to read the article. Insane." Wired also has a story. The IP list published two interesting documents: an account of the hearing by an attendee, and a letter from Intel published immediately after the hearing. Read the letter carefully - note that the disagreement between the tech industry and Hollywood is not over whether or not copy protection will be implemented into every electronic device, but only whether or not this should be written into law. If the SSSCA isn't passed, Intel (and others) get a lot of leverage over Hollywood. If it is, Intel's leverage disappears. But since both sides want to build copy protection into everything, they only differ over the process, we're in trouble either way.
Now we'll have to reflash our Ipods!
I think we need to remind our congresscritters that in light of the Enron and Global Crossing special interest fiascos, the last thing that would be appropriate for them to do now (especially after their activity on campaign finance reform) would be to pass a bill that should be renamed the "AOL/Time Warner and Friends Racket Act."
As much as I like some of my representatives, I've put them on notice that I'll vote in someone else if they dare pass this scam.
Congress: Quit telling me how to run my business, or I'll tell you how to run yours!
*scoove*
We need a law that says there CANNOT be anything built into hardware to prevent copying.
The laws have been in place. And every law has a loophole. It is illegal to murder, illegal to steal. nobody stops. This law will only make life of ordinary people hard, who wont be able to make copies even for personal use. The thieves will find a way.
IF the media thinks it can use laws to curb such things it is mistaken. In a democracy you cant always have what you want, compromises are necessary.
My Aurora : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o91ZsGwJYyg
FB : https://www.facebook.com/TanveersPhotography
Well, if you manage to crack the microwave and copy your Hungry Man dinner, Swanson's will go out of business, the economy will fail, and the terrorists win.
We must all be protected from ourselves.
It appears that Hollywood and Congress in their ignorance are demanding solutions in the name of copy protection.
It also appears that they are shouting down anyone who objects as enabling criminal activities.
Tech Industry players don't want to be seen as supporting criminals, and don't have the guts to stand up for enabling the user (Other than Intel, who got beaten up for it)
So, in the name of not looking bad, and not getting more bad law, it is a foregone conclusion that we will have copy-protection- it's just a question of whether it will have force of industry, or force of law, behind it.
As much as I hate bought legislation, why didn't the Tech Industry buy off their own Congressmen to compete with this foolishness?
I know MS only started contributing to campaigns in the last presidential election, and they've already patented the DRM OS, and IBM stands on moral and ethical ground of not getting involved- Compaq and HP are too busy fighting to merge to get involved-
By the time they realize what they've lost it will be too late to turn the tide. At least Intel tried.
I'd expect that PC manufacturers will make this protection easy to disable, either by bypassing a chip or removing it, etc... A little solder and or ingenuity and PRESTO! we'll all be modding our PC's! "A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof was to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools." - Douglas Adams, Mostly Harmless, 1992 -- The same thing applies to hackers and pirates. They will find a way.
Anyone live in the Texas Panhandle?
I sent my representative a angry letter about the SSSCA and got told how important it was to protect the nation's intellectual property against evil theives like Napster and P2P
Translation: Hollywood has been very good to me, so I'm going to continue bending you over to get play from them.
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
Is that copyright is NOT there to guarantee that people make lots of money, copyright is there to guarantee that society has literature, art, and music, by making sure artists can earn money through creation.
Huge corporations stopping fair use and extending copyright limits for the length of several human lifetimes is unAmerican.
I'm all for REAL copyright that still provides for fair use. I don't trust these goddamn people to do it for me. If it was a legitimate matter of wanting to protect themselves, i'd be more sympathetic, but its not secret that they want to find more ways to fuck you out of your money.
Let's face it. If Intel and others integrate copyprotection on the hardware level, then that processor or chipset will loose market share.
We'll all be running some Open Design homebrew
box if this happens. What is the governement going to do,.. outlaw electronics as a hobby?
I think it's time we all boycott the MPAA and RIAA.
..multimedia? Give me a DVD drive that only stores data then. I don't watch movies on my PC! What, because our processors are fast enough to decode movies you think we should?
Here's a hint: I don't give a fuck about movies. I don't want to watch them. I don't care whether or not they encode them. But I do NOT want to deal with more fucking hassle and incompatibilities when it comes to my hardware - it's a big enough issue at the moment. And this type of bullshit will cause just that - more harassment and problems. I can see tech support now: "We're sorry sir but that blue screen only comes up when you try and circumvent the protection and we won't help you fix that." Yea, right. Fsck off!
Like it'll help anyway. If Microsoft, who designs the operating system, can't make their security system safe, what makes you think that THIS will be safe?
My reality check bounced.
I'm entirely willing to accept copy protection, DRM, whatever, with one single condition.
All media has a lifetime guarantee against anything I do to it.
Basically, I want to back things up for my personal use. But, if the media companies wish to stop me doing that myself then I feel that they ought to provide me, for free (or the cost of production), with as many replacements of the original media as I want. If they are unwilling to accpet this financial undertaking (it'd be big, I'm a clumsy/forgetful/stupid person) then they ought not be able to stop me protecting my initial investment.
http://twitter.com/onion2k
I think I'll start buying my hardware overseas now. Oh, what? Mr. Tech Industry? You don't like that? Put down this silly business. Guess I'll have to start attending more live performances.
-- Who is the bigger fool? The fool or the fool who follows him? --
Jesus H. Christ. So any pocket calculator with a M+ key on it is going to be illegal? What a bunch of assholes.
On another note, where do the porn companies stand in this? I think I'm going to start writing the big porn video companies and let them know that movies they make are being shared online. That could be the one thing that could kill this bill. Imagine telling Mary soccer mom that the reason her computer is hobbled is to protect the profits of pornographers. She'll get into her Suburban and drive right over to her Congressman's office with a letter.
"It's not a war on drugs, it's a war on personal freedom. Keep that in mind at all times." Bill Hicks
As everyone knows, this is just the application of Hollywood $$$ to the gov. And actually, this law if put in place may get overturned- too far reaching and such. But IANAL.
Interesting how they point out that the Alaskan Senator is a Republican, yet never point out what party Hollings is from....
Vote monkeys into Congress. They are cheaper and more trustworthy.
Honestly, I don't particularly care if Windows gets built in DRM - unless somebody can convince me otherwise - because I don't use it.
But, see, the thing is, this mandates DRM - to Hollywood's specs - not only in Windows, but in Linux, *BSD, MacOS, PalmOS, and every single device I own. That's unreasonable.
If I'm told that I'm not allowed to use FreeBSD anymore because the TCP stack doesn't check incoming packets for copyrighted material, and because FFS lets me store mp3's, then I'm going to be really pissed. If I'm told that there are going to be some components that can no longer be 'open source' - or, more importantly, Free Software - I'm going to be really pissed. If every hard drive that I see in the store has built in DRM, I'm going to be even more pissed.
Well, guess what? That's what this bill says. My rights are getting pissed on by this bill, and it pisses me off. I'm calling my reps and telling them that if they vote for it I will not vote for them.
to the bill at all at the congress website. What is the deal, do they really not want us to know about what is going on? I'd love to jump on the phone with my state reps and chew their ear about why this is bad, but I'd like to have some legs to stand on with them. They really don't care to hear about 'some bill called the SSSCA' which I can't even give a bill number for.
You think you can import Chinese and Korean hardware? That's what the DMCA is for! Illegal merchandise will continue to be confiscated.
I have 12-18 months to buy as much non-protected digital media/hardware as I can? I guess this is one way to stimulate the economy.
It hurts when I pee.
http://congress.org/congressorg/issuesaction/lette rs/
Luckily, one of my Senators is on the Commerce committee. I urge you to write now.
You know, how hard would it be for the MPAA to make an example out of somebody who really is offering pirated copies of the latest movies? How difficult would it be to get on Morpheus or Gnutella, look up something like "The Fast and the Furious (DivX)", and trace the offender through his or her IP address? Has anybody heard of the MPAA actually doing anything like this? Aren't these the people that the MPAA should really go after? How many questions can I squeeze into one paragraph?
With legislation like the SSSCA, the movie and music industries are seeking to impose draconian (some might say dictatorial) on everybody as a result of the actions of a small percentage of the users. If these people had any interest in protecting their profits, they would actually go after the pirates who are swapping ripped movies on the Internet and selling bootleg copies on street corners. The fact that they are (apparently) unwilling to do so speaks volumes about their true intentions.
Brave men have died to protect the fundamental freedoms that the MPAA/RIAA and their corporate thugs are now bribing Congress to take away. What's most sad is that (apparently) nobody in Congress recognizes or cares about this, as long as their "charitable funds" are being properly supplied by the movie industry. Josef Stalin, Adolf Hitler, Chairman Mao, and Jack Valenti. In future history books, all of these names will appear in the same paragraph.
We're going down, in a spiral to the ground
There is one important thing to remember here in this situation: Republicans are not a fan of Hollings. And that especially includes the President, who Hollings has been publically criticizing heavily for his involvement with Enron.
Sure, our government is largely corrupt, and IMHO, neither Hollings or Bush should be in office. But if Hollings does introduce this bill, and it passes through Congress, there would be a good chance of Bush vetoing it. Of course, since the Senate is so closely split with Republicans & Democrats, I'm hoping that with the right pressure placed by us geeks, this bill won't pass in the first place.
http://www.opencores.org/
Deleted
This whole effort is somewhat like trying to outlaw the laws of physics. If they could, these guys would try to slow down the speed of light because it allows copying to happen too fast.
Copying is how computers work. Would somebody with some influence and a clue please tell them this?
One of the quote of a content provider from the article says:
"The truth is, if you cannot protect what you own, you don't own anything."
Unfortunately for the consumer:
"The truth is, if you cannot do whatever to things you own, you don't own anything."
For the love of Pete, the situation is not going to change until we, all of us, remind Congress that they work for us, not Disney, and that we will remove them from office if they do stuff like this. There are plenty of sheep out there who will just believe the corporate line, but I'd like to think that the readers here have a little more sense.
Call your representatives, especially if you have one on the Senate committee considering this. I called John Edwards office on Wednesday. It took all of 30 seconds. Did my call make a difference? Probably not. Would 500-1000 calls that day have made a difference? Possibly.
We, the technologically inclined, need to get off of our comfortable, Quake-playing asses and realize that there's a world out there. We're so caught up in ourselves that if an issue doesn't affect us personally this very day, we ignore it, aside from some grumbling on slashdot. Well, Congress doesn't read slashdot, so we need to get our message out.
Rise up, geeks. Organize. I find it hard to believe that a group that can build Mozilla can't get itself together enough to organize efforts against laws that affect our very livelihood. The only way we can even have a chance of stopping this is if we all work together.
Can we?
The EU will copy the SSSCA the instant the US tells us to do so. There will be no place to by non-SSSCA compliant equipment I bet.
-- From Denmark
At one point, Eisner badgered Vadasz, asking him, "Can you protect open content on the Internet that's been stolen and now (is) sitting on a file. Is there a technological way?" After several half-answers, Vadasz eventually replied: "No."
That exchange led to a letter that Intel sent to Hollings late Thursday. It accused Eisner and Chernin of injecting "a point of confusion" into the hearing.
Vadasz wrote in the letter: "It is important for the committee to understand that content, once captured in 'unprotected' form, can never be put back in the 'bottle' and protected against copying on the Internet. This is because this unprotected media looks no different to digital devices than a home movie that you would send to a relative or friend."
This is the Fair Use point we should be talking about -- not that we should have the right to copy other people's work willy-nilly, but that if legislation like this gets passed, we won't have the right ot view our own home movies on our device (which was bought to play back that content) because our movies don't have Disney's blessing, and their device can't tell the difference between video of your kids and a bootleg copy of Snow Dogs, and will refuse to play either!
The Intel guy basically admitted that digital devices can't tell the difference between these types of legal and illegal content, so the Entertainment industry wants to ban both! Now, that has to be against the spirit of the Copyright law, and I plan on explaining this to my senators, although I doubt Hillary or Chuck will listen.
...is basicaly shooting itself in the foot. And not just the tech industry, but also the entertainment and everything else along with it. Honestly, is Intel expecting me to buy their products when their processors for instance won't decode a movie which is not digitally signed to their liking? Or does IBM think I'll use their hdds when they won't allow me to store said movie (or software, or music, etc)?
I live in Canada, and over here we don't have those insane issues, such as this one. At least not yet. But even if we did, there would always be options to bypass the crippled hardware.
I honestly won't care how fast my computer will be if it doesn't do what I expect it to do. And I'll look for other options.
The new Pentium Hollywood edition has copyright protection? Well, VIA is making their Samuel. Slow as hell, but it works. Maxtor, IBM, Seagate hdds don't let me store "illegal" stuff? Fujitsu makes hdds too. nVidia's cards won't display my info? Well, Ati is a pretty good alternative. And if not Ati, well, others.
I could go on and on, but you get the picture. The harder the US is trying to control the use of computers, the less likely are people like myself to buy said computers. Our friends in Asia will definitely have uncrippled hardware, and I have plenty of ways to acquire it. And if not Asia, then Europe. So unless the entire world decides to make it unlawfull to use uncrippled hardware (or software), there's always going to be a way around it.
believe (IANAL) that this means that anyone with old software/hardware that does not protect/honor the copyright protections and is connected to a network is automatically commiting a felony.
There is a grandfather clause on the original proposal which allows older hardware to be somewhat immune. Doesn't make the bill any better, but it does at least give a "grace period", if you will.
Also, is anyone else completely shocked and outraged at the idea that ripping a DVD could get you more jail time than rape or murder??
Listen, I know many of us are cynical, and we believe that most people in Washington are owned by corporate dollars. However, I still have a glimmer of hope for our country. Visit the U.S. House of Representatives website and the U.S. Senate website, find your representatives' e-mail addresses, and give them your opinion. Voice your concerns! If you sit idly by, and these laws get passed, then you have only yourself to blame. We sent 15,000 letters to the DOJ regarding the Microsoft antitrust settlement, and people noticed. Numbers speak to these people.
Instead of posting to slashdot, write to your representatives. We can make a difference if we all do it this weekend. You have nothing better to do.
Good grief.. I think there's really 2 possible outcomes here. We can continue to wage the IP seller vs. consumer war or...
Pirates only pirate things when it's perceived as less convenient to purchase them. Today, it is more convenient for those so inclined to pirate something that costs $25 a copy and face the possible consequences than it is to pay the $25.
Now, if the same IP didn't come with 4 pounds of land-fillable packaging and permanently scribed onto its own read-only media and was made available online for say $5... then it might be more convenient for those same individuals to just chuck out the $5 and download the thing. Seems like a pretty simple solution to me.
Of course, you could fiddle with the other side and make the penalty for violating SSSCA (or any other copy prevention law) be instant death.. and what with the micro chip implants and all, that would be easily enforcable.
and for what it's worth: My "car" analogy on the SSSCA... Imagine what it would be like if it were illegal to build a car that could go more than 65 MPH? Good bye F1, Indy, CART, etc.
Vortran out
Knowledge is like ignorance.. too much can be just as bad as not enough.
If we look at the financial contributions listed on opensecrets.org here, we see that the top three contributors to his 1998 Senate campaign were:
Lawyers/Law Firms $1,197,317
TV/Movies/Music $282,984
Lobbyists $185,762
This nonsense in Congress is nothing but the logical conclusion of his campaign payola.
He didn't back out. He lost to the overwhelming corporate and religious-whacko money that was funneled into the Bush campaign.
Reality has a liberal bias
I don't understand how it would be possible to differentiate between content that was once DRM-controlled but no longer is, and content that was never DRM-controlled.
What if I write a story and distribute it? Of course it isn't going to have an appropriate digital signature on it. What am I supposed to do, go to some kind of appropriate authority and somehow publish it through them? What if I can't afford whatever fees they charge? Heck, paying for the right to publish? Talk about a prior restraint on free speech.
But then again, I forget, I'm not supposed to want to publish anything, and even if I do I'm not supposed to be able to do it. After all, the Internet is supposed to be just like television, right?
How long after this passes will the technology be deveolped to make great analog recordings? Albums will defnitly make a comback, and I wonder how long before someone makes a turntable that uses a laser instead of a needle so that nothing actually touches the record.
Congress is considering a law to mandate that all digital content be rendered on puch cards with "Do Not Copy" printed on them.
The MPAA applauded them move. "Now that digital movies weigh 300lbs casual piracy will be elimiated and we can safely distribute films without concern of terrorists." Blockbuster announed that all new members will receive a free pallet jack.
Chinese peasents who have been hoarding illegal CDR technology in their villages were gleefull. "Perhaps Lik-Sang will buy this @#$%% for paper to cdr converters for hackers". The I-Pod Mafia could not be reach for comment.
SD
âoeWho knew something as harmless as willful ignorance could end up having real consequences?â
MS increased it's PAC budget from $16,000 in 1995 to $1.6 Million in 2000, according to Edward Roeder, founder of Sunshine Press Services, an agency devoted to investigating money in politics.
So, yes, they did donate to campaigns prior to 1999-2000, but it was a pittance compared to more recent years.
Stop freaking about this. Whatever copy protection is put into hardware and/or software, it will be broken.
It will never be cost effective to put really strong protection measure in hardware. They will have to compromise at some point. This will make the scheme weaker.
And for digital media, who cares... As long a we can copy via an analog link, event if we loose a bit of quality (which current compression method, for audio and video, do anyway) the copied content can still be distrubuted in a digital form without any other generation loss. It may make the process a little bit more difficult, but not enough to prevent large scale infrigment.
On the software side, the data will be in an unprotected state somewhere along the pipe. So with some hacking, it will be possible to make perfect copy.
To make copy protection scheme hard to defeat would requires the protected content to be moved in a protected fashion from the persistent support (hard disk or whatever) to the display device. I doubt that all the industry players that need to be involved will be able to agree on a common scheme.
Well, I for one support the industry's ability to come up with their own scheme.... why? Because, if the federal government legislates it, it makes it a lot harder to get the Intel and the Entertainment Industry in trouble for violating fair use. Not to mention it adds frivolous civil crimes to the books that will make many innocuous things illegal and restrict our freedom to implement our own programs since EVERY piece of software must be compliant with the SSSCA.
I am sorry, but I think it is simpler to deal with an Industry stepping on us than it is to deal with the government.
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
Industry: We can't make anything to prevent copying of media.
Politicians: Well then, we'll just make a law that says you have to make something to prevent copying. That will solve the problem.
Later on...
NASA: We can't make a spaceship that travels faster than the speed of light, it's against the laws of physics!
Politicians: Well then, we'll just make a law that says you have to make a spaceship that travels faster than the speed of light. That will fix the laws of physics.
Outdoor digital photography, mostly in New Engl
Your civilization has built the Internet... (+2 per city on science.)
This obsoletes the Hollywood Wonder. ( you lose +1 per city happiness.)
(we are here)
You have 10 cities rioting.. you have decended into anarchy.
You government type has changed from a republic to fascisim.
Lets hope to it dosn't come down to "Are you sure you want to break that treaty with the Chinese?" This could have been prevented if our leaders had acknoledged the negitive effects of the Internet on Hollywood from the start. I still don't think they realize. Silly 10 year old playing civ...
Novel theory: Modern Man evolved from psychopath
Otherwise the hardware companies would face a potential boycott. The mere threat of such a thing would force the manufacturers to have some kind of "exit strategy" that would not involve depositing billions of dollars of hardware in a landfill (right next to the Circuit City DIVX players). Total cost of disabling copy protection has to be kept under $1; they have no choice.
Here's a story from The Register about Hollings grilling Intel executive VP Leslie Vadasz.
Full story below.
Senator brutalizes Intel rep for resisting CPRM
By Thomas C Greene in Washington
Posted: 01/03/2002 at 14:41 GMT
Entertainment industry lapdog Senator Fritz Hollings (Democrat, South Carolina) lashed out at Intel executive VP Leslie Vadasz who warned that the copy-protected PCs Hollings is obediantly promoting on behalf of his MPAA and RIAA handlers would stifle growth in the marketplace.
"We do not need to neuter the personal computer to be nothing more than a videocassette recorder," Vadasz said in testimony before the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation Thursday.
An obedient Hollings tore into the witness, calling his testimony "nonsense".
"Now where do you get all this nonsense about how we're going to have irreparable damage?" Hollings demanded. "We don't want to legislate. We want to give you time to develop technology."
The "we" he mentions, it's quite obvious, refers to the entertainment industry flacks and lobbyists who wrote Hollings' pet bill, the Security Systems Standards and Certification Act (SSSCA), which would require hard drives to fail to load 'insecure' applications, and perhaps even operating systems at some point in future. Tinkering with one's own personal property to defeat this Orwellian innovation would be criminally punishable.
This is of course the entertainment industry's dream, as it seeks to hobble all equipment so that it can determine when, where and how its content can be enjoyed by consumers. Copying any content from one medium to another could be blocked on the pretext of piracy prevention, so it's entirely possible that one would have to purchase two CDs with the same content -- one for the computer and one for the stereo, say. It's this sort of extortion the industry has relentlessly lobbied Congress to enshrine in law.
Defeating piracy is the pretext; but obliterating the consumer's right to fair use is the true goal. But because Congress can't quite bring itself to eliminate fair use directly and up-front, a series of laws like the DMCA and SSSCA have been devised to eliminate it practically, or 'incidentally'.
Naturally, the hardware industry is going to resist any law which forces it to break its products. It understands that consumers will be disappointed by equipment which fails to let them enjoy content which they've purchased. They see a slump in sales in the SSSCA. And they're probably right.
The hearing was a typical Congressional dog-and-pony show designed to stroke Hollywood fat cats like Michael Eisner and Jack Valenti pursuing the Holy Grail of pay-per-use technology. No critics were invited to speak, and no harsh criticism was expected.
So when Intel's Vadasz showed the spine to blast the entertainment industry's pet scheme, he had to be beaten down, and Hollings was of course eager to please his masters.
Eisner and Valenti also testified, exhibiting their profound ignorance of technology and their sneering contempt for the rights of consumers, under Hollings' admiring gaze. Hollings, clearly, is an honest politician according to Brendan Behan's formula: when he's bought, he stays bought.
Hollings has also adopted the industry's basic stance, that copying is primarily about piracy, and only rarely about honest fair use. But the best expression of this comes from Recording Industry Ass. of America President Hillary Rosen, who wrote yesterday that, "surely, no one can expect copyright owners to ignore what is happening in the marketplace and fail to protect their creative works because some people engage in copying just for their personal use."
The 'some people' says it all. Most people are criminals, and only a tiny minority are honest and decent, Rosen assumes. This is the also official perspective of Hollywood -- of Eisner, and Valenti, and Hollings. It is a perspective natural to a certain class of person. Consider that we all imagine others to be more or less like ourselves. Decent people expect others to be decent, just like themselves. Criminals expect others to be criminals, just like themselves. When Eisner and Rosen and Valenti and Hollings see a world populated by cheats and frauds and freeloading scum, what does that say about them? ®
Just you're average nitpicker.
Sen. Fritz Hollings told universities, schools and colleges, Thursday that they can no longer teach students digital electronics, if it involves practical projects. Universities celebrated, after realising that they could sell all their expensive electronics labs, test equipment and computers and buy more carpets.
"This is GREAT!!" said one student. "My final project was a digital audio player, it was due in next week and i was far behind. But now the government has declared it illegal, and my professor is forced to pass me wayhaaay!" he continued: "The only down side, is that the feds raided my home and found a 100-page report (my project) with detaild schematics. I now face upto 5 years in prision under both the DMCA _and_ the SSSCA!"
Hobbyists were outraged however, "I don't want to live in a country where if i go to radio-shack to buy some components, i can expect FBI agents waiting on my doorstep for an inspection when i get home."
But this law doesn't only affect engineers. Second-hand electronics dealers today announced that they were concerned about the consequences of the law. When passed, it could mean the entire stock, of some dealers would instantly become as illegal as 100Kg of cocaine. "Does that mean i can sell this old Apple IIe for its weight in coke?" asked one seller.
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
1. The thing that makes me think is - will they
be building machines without copy protection outside
of the US ? I _bet_ they won't.
So we Europeans will be affected and can't do _anything_
about it. THAT'S my problem.
2. What will this new hardware do to Linux and will
Open Source still be possible and legal after this
law passed ?
The US government is taking away consumer rights
one after the other. After following these things
here on Slashdot I'm _really_ happy to live in Europe,
but that won't help me in the long-term since
nowadays US laws can be enforced everywhere it seems.
Lets condence the entire problem into two sentences.
"Lets pass a law that makes it illegal to copy digital information. That way, we never have to worry about the effect of technological progress on our profit margins."
The problem is not that people are using computers to easily copy and distribute digital information. The problem is that the current business models are in complete and total ignorance of reality. The old business models no longer hold up. Rather then protecting the defunct and now retarded practices with laws, we should be creating new business models.
These laws are about as inteligent as passing a law that the value of Pi shall henceforth be three.
END COMMUNICATION
The porblem I have with implementing copyrights in hardware is that it will probably be an indefinite lock on the content whereas copyrights do, eventually, expire.
Some copyrights expire relative to the authors death. How would the hardware/content know when the author has died? Will it be connected to ssome central copyright database?
Of course, no one in the government can think that far into the future. Who cares if content is locked down for eternity because it secures it authors a monopoly on the content for a meager 70 years.
As I understand the law, if I record myself singing in the shower, I have the copyright on that work. If this law passes, how would the following scenario play out?
Assume I do record myself and, for whatever reason, someone else wants to hear this. So I make an mp3 without any copyright info watermarked/whatevered into it, and give it to this person. Now their mp3 player has DRM built in and sees no copyright info - and thus won't play this recording.
As the copyright holder, I'm well withing my rights to distribute the recording (that is, after all, one of the main reasons for copyright), yet I can't because I don't have access to any watermarking technology (don't think for a minute there won't be license fees for this technology).
Does anyone see problems here???
Jon
Let's see. How many families of 9/11 have their money? why not?
How many people are still waiting the outcome of Congress and the President before they get employment ( or welfare - depending on your parties choice ) help?
How many people are still waiting for homeland defense and security that applies to us physically such as the planes I fly and the bridge I drive over to get to work?
This is ridiculous. If the only thing Congress can do with their time is write laws and bills that make their *supporters* and Lobbyist happy then this country is in a sad state indeed. We vote these people into office. WE should be the ones they answer to. Not AOL Time/Warnder. Not RIAA/MPAA. Not Company A or B. This is pathetic and I'm getting sick of the waste of taxpayers dollar paying these people to make laws that are designed to 'burn us, make companys happy'.
Let's just all get together and give all of our money to our local congressman. Then we'll take our childrens money and give it to a company of our congressman's choice AND THEN jump off a bridge.
"An interactive digital device is defined as any hardware or software capable of "storing, retrieving, processing, performing, transmitting, receiving or copying information in digital form."
So touch-tone phones with redial buttons are going to be illegal? How about those silly little digital voice memo recorders?
Oh, wait, here's a big one: Xerox Docutech digital copiers! Anybody dropped a line to Xerox yet?
DRM, to whatever extent that it should exist, should seek some sort of license on the host equipment before yielding its goodies. That's one thing.
I should not have to get a license before I plug an IC into a socket or write a line of perl. That's another thing entirely. Obviously, that outcome will be disastrous for many sorts of innovation, including but not limited to open source, and it will also be a real blow to free expression.
The difference is enormous. It's not "either way we are in trouble", it's "one way we don't get to watch lousy movies and listen to bad music without paying the bastards their cut, and the other way we don't get to touch digital technology of any sort without a license". DRM may or may not be a big deal (I think it will eventually backfire and go away, like every copy protection scheme before it). Moving to a world where any technological activity is expressly forbidden without asking for permission is a very big, very bad deal.
"Either way we are in trouble" is silly. It's like saying "hmm, if I hit the brakes hard enough to avoid hitting that jackknifed semi, I'll spill my coffee, so I'm in trouble either way". It may be true, but it's really not a serious question as to which option to prefer.
mt
If all we do as a technical community is rant about it and stand on our perfect principles and refuse to accept it, we'll just be marginalized and ignored, and Hollywood will have a clear path to whatever it wants.
The most effective way to help the situation is for technologists to sit down and try to work with Hollywood to create an acceptable DRM model for all parties. By working together on some kind of compromise at least some elements of freedom and creativity might be preserved. Just whining about how information "wants to be free" and all that crap isn't helping anything.
Besides, why shouldn't effective DRM exist? Assume for a second that strong DRM is included in all electronic devices. Now assume I'm a band and I want to allow free copying of all my stuff - what's the problem? I can just "chmod" my music files to "allow everything" and stick them on my web site. Similarly with open-source software. All writers have to do is set the rights bits to "enable all" and we're pretty much ok, aren't we?
I understand the platform problem (e.g. DeCSS), but really, again, that's within the rights of the media owners. If I want to produce movies that I know can't run on Linux boxen, well I have the right to do that. And if you can't play them, too bad. There's nothing that says you have a right to hack my stuff so you can see it on your OS.
Regarding Fair Use - that's where I'm talking about getting involved. How come the technical community can't work with RIAA, MPAA, etc, and figure out a way to ensure that I can make my personal copies, but can't distribute them to others? It would actually be nice to be able to make perfect digital copies of "unbroken" music for my personal use, rather than be stuck with these deliberately crapped-up CDs they're starting to produce with all the error correction mutilated and rendered impotent.
We either need to get constructively involved in finding a compromise that suits all parties or sit back and watch as the one-sided circus unfolds and Hollywood imposes whatever sick ideas it has about mandatory DRM on us unfettered by rational thought.
Please Rate my comment (and help support Fre
This entire effort is doomed to failure and futility, whether the bill is passed or not, whatever provisions it has in it. And none of the people involved can see that. Not IBM, not Disney - none of them.
The simple thing is that there is nothing - absolutely nothing - that can completely secure media against people to whom you sell it. They think that they are making it difficult for the average person to copy their products, leading to less copying. But what they don't see is that when all is said and done all the average person has to do is point a camera at a TV screen, or put a microphone in front of a speaker, and press record. Encryption? Defeated. Watermarking? Defeated. Shielded and encrypted key managed components from the DVD to the TV set itself? Defeated. It isn't high tech, isn't difficult, and in the end anyone can do it. It might not be perfect quality, but the VCR and MP3s have shown that "good enough" is good enough for the average person.
The most that will happen is that when they catch someone distributing a movie or song there may be a few more charges to jail them with. It won't change anything.
However, I do have a second point to make.
Disney et al. looks around and sees people copying their movies and making them available on the Internet. They think about making movies available digitally and it terrifies them that they might let the genie out of the bottle and "lose" their movies forever as a result. Actually, with DVDs they already make their movies available digitally - which scares them even more! Heck, all that money and effort to buy 150 year copyright protection will go down the drain - along with their companies.
So what can they do about it? Can they track down and prosecute the ones doing the copying? Haven't had much luck there - and even if they catch the 16 year old that first placed a movie on the Internet, they can't take the movie off the Internet.
Our system of Justice is based on freedom (don't laugh, it is - based on it anyway) - you have the freedom to do whatever you want. You simply have to face the consequences afterwards. We don't focus on trying to prevent crimes but on punishing crimes. That's part of what gets people frustrated with the police in some circumstances: "Well, can't you do something about them officer???" "Sorry ma'am, they haven't done anything illegal yet".
What Disney and the rest have decided to do is not to help make it illegal to share copies of their products on the Internet - it already is. They haven't decided to try and catch the ones doing it - it isn't easy, it doesn't put the "genie back in the bottle", and it isn't good PR to throw a kid in jail for 20 years. No, what they have decided to do is to attempt to make it impossible to break the copyright laws.
And that's why they'll fail - it cannot be done. No one can prevent someone from breaking the law if they really want to. And that's why we have a failure to communicate. They just don't see that - they are too scared that it is already too late, and terrified individuals make bad choices.
I for one hope they calm down - that they see their business model is not going to work from here forward and try to adapt. Maybe spending $200 million to make a picture just won't work anymore - maybe it has to cost under $20 million for them to make a profit using just the box office sales and lower VCR and DVD sales. I don't know.
But right now they are running scared - and making really bad choices.
They really can't do anything of what they ask. Not if they really want to be elected next year. If congress passes some stupid law like this, then the voters will strike back. Even my mom wants to make copies of video's in case something does go bad. Here's what they should do:
1. Price DVD's and CD's fairly. Hollywood, you already made money on the movie when we watched it in the theater. It stands that you should make money selling DVD's as well. As it stand now, DVD's, even the cheap ones are over priced for what they are. And oh well, someone who bought the right to write program to decrypt dvd's screwed up (Xing) making it possible to crack. If DVD's and CD's cost, say, 5 bucks, then it would not be worth the time to decrypt and make a copy of it at home....if you screw your copy up, just go to the store. Oh and RIAA, your profits did not go down BECAUSE of napster, they went down because you are cranking out vapid, bubblegum crap that noone wants to here anymore. Nothing has been original about any of the new stuff lately. How many boy bands do we have to hear before a good band releases something?? And how many years have they been selling CD's? YOU CAN'T change CD's now because if you do, older player's WILL have problems. Not might, WILL. This is why the Charlie Pride case was settled the way it was.
2. Charge a decent price for the movie. More people would see movies if you reduce he price. I have only seen one movie in the past year because I can't afford a trip to the movies. I'll wait til it comes out on DVD.
3. I want to record TV when I see something. I promise I won't sell it. Any movie shown on TV is so sanitized that it sometimes only looks like the original. Why buy a crappy TV version when the original is better. On and why is ASS a bad word?? Anyone see American Pie when it was aired on FOX? I'd be kind of interested to see how much it differ from the original considering it was a pretty raunchy movie. Also, local news and stuff is things I'd like to record sometimes. My mom and dad have a video of my Grandpa when a human intrest story was done on him by a local TV station about amateur radio. It's my best memory of my grandpa because it was before his stroke that put him in the hospital for good. I can look at this video and see my grandpa as I remember him. It is the best kind of thing to have.
These things (mostly the price one) are things that sound fair to me. There will always be pirates. No matter what "COPY" protection their is in a device, we humans are resourceful. We will always have a way to break it. Even if we have to crack open our devices and figure out where to tap into the device to pick up an unencrypted copy. If you would just come out with good stuff, and not this vapid crap AND charge a decent price, we'll buy it. Next thing you know, we'll have to ban pencils, pens and phtocopiers or put Rights Management stuff on them. What's next? Rights Management on our brains??
Gorkman
1. Circumvention devices are illegal, IF they have the exclusive purpose of being a circumvention device. (Providers can't use an amateur DRM system)
2. ALL copyrights expire after 20 years. (Not this 95-150 years BS when original copyrights were 14 years)
3. When a copyright expires, it must be released without DRM (Digital Rights Management) software.
Personally, I think this is a perfect balance. While I would deam circumvention devices illegal, I would also release TONS of MODERN works in the public domain. You're probably thinking, "Big deal, you're realing everything prior to 1980 into the public domain. I'll get to watch old movies."
We don't even have a dictionary in the public domain that is clear enough to scan in with OCR software. (I'm not sure of the current status.)
We have nothing, as far as modern works is concerned, in the public domain. Imagine the wealth of information published prior to 1980, now imagine it's all free. Now imagine you're free to plaigerize from all those works to create an uber-encyclopedia of data structures, gardening, renewable energy guide, home medical guide, medical diagnosis software, etc.
It would create a whole new landscape for a whole new type of aggrigate content. You would be free to mix the best of two books or entire volumes and magazines, and put it on a CD or DVD. The amount of knowledge that could be compiled would be insane.
You might as well give new works the ability to protect themselves for a limited amount of time.
It's time to educate the people with the free information they are entitled to. The US Constitution acknoweldges that information is inherantly free, because they had to make a provision for limited copyrights and patents.
The only reason they would make such a provision is because it was self-evident that information, specific works or vague abstractions, belong to the public and no individual.
In other words, copyrights and patents are privledges, not rights.
"Communism is like having one [local] phone company " - Lenny Bruce
Don't forget digital watches. Setting your watch is an interactive process, involving a user interface (blinking digits), feedback (changing digits), and input (the buttons).
I guess they don't want you to steal the date and time from Jack Valenti's watch.
You could legally build insecure digital watches in the UK, but you might be thrown in jail if you come to the U.S. to tell people how to build such watches.
The Intel guy wrote:
Could this be a signal?
Politically, he's suggesting that the best argument against SSSCA is that it would effectively ban "home movies" and similar things.
If you want to persuade your Senators, your Representative, or your neighbors that SSSCA is a bad idea, perhaps the "home movie" angle tells the story best. Home movies are the non-geek equivalent of Free Software, after all.
Just like they've been siezing copyright circumvention devices provisioned by the DMCA (See prior slashdot stories...)
"Communism is like having one [local] phone company " - Lenny Bruce
Hate to point it out to you, but you're only in the 50th year of "America as a superpower". There's plenty of time for America to turn into imperial Rome, complete with blood sports and massacres of the christians.
Deleted
If congress passes some stupid law like this, then the voters will strike back.
Don't be so sure. In Orange County, CA, a judge found in possession of child porn on his office and home computers is about to be re-elected, despite a well-publicized campaign to vote him out with write-ins (he is the only candidate on the ballot). It looks like the effort will fail, and the judge will take his seat on the bench again.
Now if charges of child porn fail to whip up the citenzry enough to vote an official out of office, what makes you think they'll be moved to vote out an official over SSSCA?
Even my mom wants to make copies of video's in case something does go bad.
When was the last time your mom participated in a public protest or civil disobedience? Better yet, when was the last time your mom voted?
Edith Keeler Must Die
Valenti said in his statement to the committee. "The truth is, if you cannot protect what you own, you don't own anything."
They can't protect what they own, they have to ask others to do it.
I'm the big fish in the big pond bitch.
Sure, customs might grab it, but seriously... Do you *really* think Taiwan or Japan would take kindly to having one of their most profitable industries (and exports) suddenly disappear?
The US *might* be able to saber rattle them into line, but would China, or even other countries looking for exports not pass up the oppertunity to ship SSSCA-less hard drives into the US where the demand is incredible?
As the story said, we are in trouble either way. However, we are in *much* more trouble if a law is passed.
With many of us using Linux, there would always be ways around the protection. However, if the law is passed, we are in big trouble. I quote from one of the articles:
"The Hollings bill, called the Security System Standards and Certification Act (SSSCA), makes it a civil offense to make or sell digital technologies that do not contain what it calls "certified security technologies," built-in systems that prevent the copying of content."
How many programmers are going to release something for free that might land them in prison for 5 years?
"Hey, here's the police and Holywood Studios Special Forces Unit!
Either let us voluntarily search for non-compliant equipment, confiscate it if found or you'll be charged for being a pirate and will be terminated with your whole residence!"
IMO this law is not intended to fight pirates. It's goal is somewhere else (mentioned in a lot of other posts) and one of it's sideefects will be (sooner or later) police state where all "ordinary citizens" are at best suspects or (more likely) criminals right from their birdth.
hany
psxndc
The emacs religion: to be saved, control excess.
their device can't tell the difference between video of your kids and a bootleg copy of Snow Dogs
Most VCDs today aren't ripped, they're filmed by some fool in a theater with a camcorder. How the heck is that going to be detected? Camcorders will have to have constantly updated AI code to verify that they aren't taping anything copyrighted, and will cover it with little black bars if so? WTF?
Ye Gods... this makes me want to go find my Senator, and smack him upside his fool head.
I live in the UK. I don't feel I have anything I can directly do to help here, but can anyone think of what us non-us people can do? For example, what might be the best way to help reduce the chance of this sort of misguided nonsense happening over here?
God I hate problems that I am powerless to help solve.
-- MartinG To mail me: echo kewyjlcxyzvjfxbqwh | tr bcefhjklqvwxyz
Wake up,
It's worse than that. If Linus doesn't build into the new Kernel copy protection then he and all his cohorts go to jail too. This would KILL Open Source.
I disagree with one of your points.
There's nothing that says you have a right to hack my stuff so you can see it on your OS.
Assuming that I go to the store and shell out money
for a DVD, for example, I should be able to do
whatever I please with it. I should have the right
to use what I bought however I want for personal
reasons. That includes breaking encryption so that
I can watch it on a computer running OS of choice.
So long as I do not redistribute it, why does the MPAA care what I do with it?
I believe I do have an inherant right to do
whatever I want with my property, when
I use that property for personal use.
By paying of Congress to push the SSSCA, Disney
and their pals want to have leverage over hardware makers so that they can make sure that technology
will always be compatible with their business
models, even if it means harming the US Tech Industry. Such a thing is unheard of in a free
market. By passing this law, Congress will
essentially be saying that The RIAA and MPAA have
a right to always be in business, no matter how
poor their business models are, and that the
RIAA and MPAA have more rights than any other
industries, including the technology industries.
I suppose that this will also mean that the RIAA
and MPAA have more rights than an average citizen.
This sort of thing is what will destroy the US
Economy, sooner or later, because it will destory
the free market the US Economy was based on.
If the media companies and the technology
companies want to do this on their own, that is fine. Congress is overstepping its bounds by
trying to push it legally. The free market will
dictate if it is successful or not.
"You spoony bard!" -Tellah
Interesting how they point out that the Alaskan Senator is a Republican, yet never point out what party Hollings is from....
Fourth paragraph, "Hollings, a Democrat from South Carolina, said in his statement to the committee."
I guess ignorance is "Interesting" on Slashdot.
The tech industry could just stop making devices capable of playing Hollywood content. It'd be really funny if the industry took a look at the bill and said "The easiest way to make protected hardware is simply not to make the hardware. Good luck finding a DVD player in a year's time."
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Start sending letters as a pornographer to the honorable senators thanking them for introducing the legislation and asking how much you can contribute to their campaigns.
Include a free sample by way of thanks.
Deleted
I understand that you have spent $1 Billion promoting Linux, and as a result you seem to be selling plenty of shiny new mainframes. If the SSSCA makes Linux illegal, what are you going to do then?
You could try to produce a closed source SSSCA complient version of Linux for your customers, but that would break the GPL. OTOH, I guess that Stallman and Co aren't rich enough to sue you so perhaps that doesn't matter. But, once open source Linux is illegal all the work on your version will have to be done by your staff at your expense. Wouldn't it be cheaper to bribe some politicians so that other folks can keep developing it at no expense to you?
We all look forward to hearing your opinion on this matter.
First of all, not all of Congress are money- grubbing worms. And the others are afraid of losing support.
/. and make your case logically. Don't be threatening, just make it clear that this is important to your vote. Yes, you may get a "we need to protect copyrights...blah...blah" response, but I guarantee that if you got a chain of messages going to them, they will listen. You call. Then, have your spouse, mom, dad, brother, sister, aunt, uncle, whatever, call. And get as many of your friends to do the same as you can.
I suggest contacting people like Rick Boucher(info here). He seems to have a clue. Get ahold of his office, and find out who else could help out. Then help them organize resistance to this bill.
It's been said a thousand times, but listen anyway: contact your state's Congress memebers. Write down your comments before hand, making them concise and lucid. Leave the vitriol and belly aching on
Creedo
All that is necessary for the triumph of good is that evil men do nothing.
You want to write software? Fine. Be sure to register with Software Industry Association of America and get your idea approved. Then after 4-6 weeks you'll be sent an "Individual Coder's Package." This will allow you to write your software with all the copy protection and watermarks built in (not editable by you, of course.) and run your software on your DRM compliant machine, only. This will not allow you to distribute your software; distribution will be decided by the SIAA after a lengthy review process. After 4-6 months, the SIAA decides that your software performs a similar function as a program by AOL/TimeWarner/Microsoft. A form letter arrives letting you know that you are in suspected violation of the DMCA. Your rights to create are suspended, pending an investigation. (4-6 years.)
If you are a writer, replace software with story.
If you are a musician, replace software with song.
If you are an artist, replace software with art.
If you are a filmaker, replace software with film.
If you are frightened, disgusted, and alarmed, you should be.
This will be the future if people do not educate others, and sit idly while Industry decides how best to control what you see, hear, use, and buy.
Have a great day.
Hollings isn't up until 2004, though, and I imagine he'll retire then.
The problem with all these copyright issues is that the general public doesn't know or care to know enough about it to care. This allows the corporations to run roughshod not only over matters of fair use but how and whether you get to use it at all. Their sole tactic with the public is to erroneously characterize anyone who objects as pirates, and they have a tremendous edge on the perception of the matter.
Well, two can play at that game. Start telling your friends that this will make their VCRs illegal. Get a couple of friends together on friday night and go hang out in front of your local movie theater to tell the patrons about this and claim there is a boycott going on. Make insinuations about the porn industry. Comment on the corrupt internal dealings of the media industry, and its lobbying power in government.
Anyone else have some good implications that will cause hyperventilation in the general populace?
---If you can't trust a nerd, who can you trust?
Here are some of the proposed penalties:
I just want to write free software and give it to the world. I want the thrill of producing something with my peers that is as good or better as what the commercial world offers.
We're not interested in breaking copyrights; I don't even listen to any music from the last 30 years, and the only movies I watch are Star Wars. (Well, almost.)
The net effect of this is to reserve the privilege of publishing software to the elite few that can be certified as providing DRM. The Internet brought publishing to the masses -- now the big guys want to shut that off with trademark domain name rackets, etc. The free software revolution brought the art of producing software, the high art of hackery, to the masses. Now that's going to be shut off, too.
Fundamentally there's no difference between a gigantic big-city newspaper and a tiny neighborhood newsletter. Both should be accorded the same rights and protections. Well, fundamentally there's no difference between Microsoft and me, except Microsoft is big enough to be able to survive this DRM stuff. If it goes through, I won't be able to write software any more. Children won't be able to legally learn to program in the 4th grade like I did. Software will only come from crufty companies, and you can forget about free software (as in speech or as in beer, either one). There will be NO innovation anymore, and society will get what it justly deserves for passing such laws. I guess at that point only a revolution will bring back liberty.
Richard Stallman once wrote an essay dipicting a future of software controls and unreasonable DRM. In the story, debuggers had been declared illegal because their primary purpose was to subvert copyright protections. I laughed the first time I read it, thinking that was ludicrous.
Secession is the right of all sentient beings.
Its all very fine for Jack Valenti to claim he's being ripped off (we'll see about that. I really DONT like people assuming that I'm a criminal. I think that "presumption of innocence" is written into the constitution, am I right?)
/.
Besides, what's that going to do to the content producers. You won't be able to CREATE an MP3 file on your CD-R or CD-RW burner or be able to create a dvd from your home movies because you don't have some stupid copy protection dongle or other annointment from some --AA (and paid for at extortionist prices.)
Give me a fucking break. the RIAA and the MPAA won't be happy until we're paying through the nose to watch the same three reruns of my "My Mother the Car."
I'm now cutting out all media that I can't access from my TiBook. Simply because that's the ONLY piece of access I want to have.
I don't have a DVD player. I don't have a CD player. I don't have a TV and I barely listen to NPR.
Where do the idiots think I watch DVDS or listen to my CDs or get my information? I do it all on my TiBook.
If they want to force me to buy their toys to watch or listen to their crap, they can kiss my mother fucking ass.
The content nowadays ain't worth bothering with. Its vetter to sit at Starbucks logging on over the wireless DHCP connection and posting replies to
And that's the truth.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
One of the things that has really bothered me during the whole SSSCA debate is the media coverage, or lack thereof. I live in South Carolina, and I've never even ONCE heard any mention of this issue from any SC-based media outlet. A quick search of some newspaper archives (Columbia's The State and Charleston's Post and Courier) confirms this. It seems that most of the state adores Hollings and most news stories present him in glowing fashion. I just find it sad that very few of the people actually responsible for putting and keeping this guy in office even hear about major policy he is spearheading. If that's not a breakdown of democracy, I don't know what is.
Even assuming that copyright isn't extended indefinitely, which is a pretty big assumption, the SSSCA will effectively kill the public domain, and here's why.
Even when content comes out of copyright, how are you going to get access to it to use, modify and distribute it? Work through it with me. What you will have is (e.g.) a SSSCA-compliant DVD-2 disk containing an AV stream with a watermark that says "I belong to Disney" weaved in.
But it's out of copyright (let's ignore trademarks, although god knows that's a huge assumption), so now you can quite legally give a copy to your friends, or make your own edit of it, right?
Er, how?
You need to strip the watermark, or it will keep screaming that it belongs to Disney, and I very, very much doubt if any watermarks will have dates on them. No problem, you've got a quantum computer that can crack the pathetic 70 (90, 110, 130 or whatever it is by then) year old protection and remove it, right?
Not legally, you don't. You're allowed to do it, but you're not allowed the tools to do it. This is already the case under the DMCA. But the SSSCA just makes it worse because now you don't have (legal) access to any devices that will play any copied or modified versions unless you strip the watermark. Now you're damned if you do, and damned if you don't.
(Apologies for the re-use of the analogy, but it's a good one). The content is in a safe with a tiny window that means only you can view it. The clock has run out, and you're now legally allowed to open the safe and get access to the content. Only you don't know the combination. And you're not allowed to buy safe cracking tools, because the assumption is that you'll use them to crack open safes holding still copyrighted material.
One way or another, you have to break the law to create a copy or a modified version or to use such a copy, even though the act of making the copy is entirely legal. It's as simple as that.
Now consider that this also applies to fair use before the copyright expires. Bye bye using clips or images for parody, comment or review. Oh, you can copy the clip, it's just that owning anything that enables you to do so, or to view the copied clip, is illegal.
I do believe that the DMCA and the SSSCA are primarily about stopping piracy. There's no sinister long term motive to stop all fair use dead, or to extend copyright (or copy-prevention) indefinitely. No, those are just nice side effects that polarise society into two groups: licensed content creators, and consumers. Nothing in the middle. No independent multimedia artists or satirists, no amateur editors, no Project Guttenberg, no public domain libraries... no public domain. Just corporate producers, good little consumers... and criminals.
That's not a world I relish living in.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Here's a link to a testimony concerning some researchers outrage to the SSSCA - (I don't think this was directly linked to or discussed as of yet)
As an aside, what this is turning into is like a hybrid of Brave New World/1984/Grapes of Wrath/etc...
I don't think this shall end well... but we can do more than hope - we can do something about it
A disk manufacture sels its first 'copy protection' disk to a citizen of a country that still allows fair usage?
Wouldn't it be nice if schools got all the money they wanted and the army had to hold jumble sales for guns
Just replace the IT industry with Dilbert, the MPAA folks with marketing weasels, and the congressmen with Pointy-Haired Bosses. To sum up the hearings, this is how it went:
Marketing Weasels: "This online piracy is hurting sales. The solution is obvious: Make all computers unable to copy anything."
PHB: "Yup. That sounds right, take care of it Dilbert."
Dilbert: "That's impossible. All computers copy. It's part of their basic operation. You might as well tell me to design a perpetual motion machine."
PHB: "I don't understand what you're saying. Logically, anything I don't understand isn't important. You have 12 to 18 months to make all the computers in the world unable to copy. Oh, and the marketing weasels get to decide on the specs. Don't worry, they rarely change their minds more than twice a day."
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
As it appears as though the first ammendment to the US Constitution is completely useless now, there are even further attacks on the freedom of speech, such as this bill.
Keep in mind that the argument of (Code == Speech) has not been established by the courts, although as a professional software developer I would argue strongly that it is. I resent the fact that there are certain algorithms that I can't implement, simply because of some stupid regulation or other political objective.
I admit that there could be illegal forms of software, but in my opinion it should be somthing like the proverbial yelling "Fire!" in a crowded room. Writing and using software to perform a DNS attack, or secretly installing something like Back Orifice without the users permission would certainly come close. However, even in these cases I can think of legitamate uses for the software, even though it would be more like a set of lock picking tools. It would be the way it is used that is illegal rather than posession of the tool itself.
Furthermore, I feel that abuse against an individual which stops them from performing immediate typical actions (like the DNS attack I mentioned or grabbing data from a system by deliberately subverting security measures) should be illegal. These nebulous laws that protect an industry are questionable at best. The DeCSS controversy is also a good case in point to show that more traditional forms of expression (such as publication in a newspaper or a public reading of the sourcecode for DeCSS) can also be restricted with these very same laws. (Actually, it would be cool if we could get a congressman to read DeCSS from the floor of the US House of Representatives, but I degress here). The proposed SSSCA hearing would even make that kind of speech illegal. Think about it.
I also think that the time for something like the Open Cores project is going to be critical in the future, where not only is the software going to need to be free and open, but the hardware designs as well. This way we are no longer held to the mercy of a company like Intel that could force new standards like what is being proposed.
I'm no techno guru, so I can't say I understand all the issues involved in building 'secure' systems, but I dunno how they can stop the "laws of physics" (as some posters have put it), and prevent bits from being copied.
They can only make it harder to copy stuff, but then it only takes one person to crack it. They can make it illegal to distribute copies, but then we have huge illegal distribution networks in place. They can put people in jail for posession, but then they can't examine the contents of a CD found on your person without taking it to the lab. They can make a device report every single file you open to some central database or whatnot, but who the hell is going to track billions of needles in terabytes of haystacks?
Just what do they expect to be able to do? Frighten people? Make 'em think, "gee, this is illegal... I'd better not do it?" -- but music and films appeal to young people, the ones most likely to have less need of "respectability".
Is Dirty Data is going to become a new rhetoric, a sort of new morality, making people believe that data can be "filthy" and "rotten". Listen to a Bach copy and you'll be corrupted by those dirty nasty un-authenticated bits??
Is that all they hope to achieve? Get the tech industry to admit that it might be sort of maybe possible, (thus creating pretense that the law is enforceable), and then use the existence of the law to create a cultural notion that copying is bad and can damage your health and well being?
Silly, but I do wonder. Or perhaps they already realise that the game is up. Digital technology is to data what mass cheap produced energy available through a socket in your home is to the local cart and coal merchant. They know the game is up. Their distribution model is dead. And they're just buying themselves some time.
So long as they can maintain the illusion that they still have something to own and distribute (see, we prevent copies with DRM, and we sell online to new markets), then their credibility as a business will continue... just a little while longer. Maybe until they figure out what to really do, maybe just to milk the market until they retire.
Either way, when an empty shell of an industry only has it's image of power and worth left, then "The show must go on...."
This is obviously a bigger problem than cancer, AIDS, world hunger, or the state-sanctioned violence going on all over the world.
They say the SSSCA will "boost hardware sales." That is because you will have to dump the system you just bought and get a new one if you want to take advanage of all of the 'great new online content.'
I think the only solution is to boycott this crap when it comes out. Refuse to buy the new DRM 64GHz system. Waive your right to watch Madonna or Jurassic Park 47 online. Point out to these corrupt politicians that you are not stupid enough to let them obsolete a system that you bought last month.
It is annoying that we (taxpayers) and the hardware industry end up spending the time and money involved in implementing these systems for the entertainment industry, while they sit back and do nothing basking in the glow of the inconvenience that they have caused everyone.
On top of that, after we go through the expenditure and wast of accomodating these paranoid jerks, we inevitably find that it has basically zero effect (except the waste of time and money). How much time and effort was spent on the copy flags implemented on every CD you buy? Has it ever prevented you from doing anything you wanted to the contents of a CD? Have you ever seen a pirated copy of a CD on DAT tape? I haven't.
But still, this is the most pressing issue for human society to solve today.
Why is Grand Theft Auto a much more serious crime than Reckless Driving?
You just figured that out? That's been apparent for several years now.
Personally, I think the reason that the Internet became so popular is that it wasn't television. Then the TV execs figured out where all the eyeballs were going. And you see the result.
Anyway, the more people figure this out the better. So pass the word.
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
Unless you take the stance that corporations should be well-regulated and individuals should be free. But even then, government could come to the wrong conclusion and regulate the hardware manufacturers rather than regulate to restrict the legal claims of the content pimps.
Now if you say, "Corporations should be well-regulated to protect the freedom of the individuals," that's getting closer, except what about the freedom of individuals to invest in pyramid schemes like Enron?
How about, "Corporations should be regulated to assure the transparent and abundant flow of information in every sphere"? - That would both require Enron-like scammers to open their books fully, and require content pimps to let their artists get off the street and into the loving arms of their admirers.
__
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
Don't forget that we're in the midst of turning the trade sanction thumbscrews on the Ukyraine, because they produce CD blanks that don't have the proper "protective IDs" built-in. As one of the former members of the Soviet Union, they fit right into the category you're talking about, and we're already @#$%ing them over.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
The primary purpose of a general computer is to logically process data according to user input (software).
If this law passes - general computers will no longer be produced. The primary purpose of the computer will then be to check if the user is doing anything illegal, and THEN do it if it appears to be acceptable.
There is not so much a difference between polititians and programmers as some would believe - we must TALK or otherwise communicate with these law makers, so that they may understand the collosal value of the general computer - and understand why it should NOT be lost!
Ryan Fenton
How about this?
The first rule covers the establishment of monopolies through legal means. The second rule covers monopolies that develop without legal support (i.e., natural monopolies).
the us started a war on drugs and they placed a large percentage of their population into prision, pushed the problem off on a third world country (columbia), and brought terror upon that population for the addictions of our citizens.
this is where we currently stand.
-- john
Gentlemen, I am writing you today to voice grave objections to Senator Fritz Hollings and his stance on digital rights management via his SSSCA legislation.
The U.S. economy is in the midst of an amazing ascent from recession, having endured more than any of us might have imagined that it could survive.
The digital information infrastructure is in no small part responsible for our recovery. The ability of businesses to easily and quickly exchange large amounts of information is key to our ever-increasing productivity.
This infrastructure is made possible by a number of software applications that are made available for free, and these applications are maintained by organizations that derive their profits by charging for support.
Let us take, for example, the "sendmail" application supported by:
http://www.sendmail.org
It is both unfair and unreasonable to require this company, who gives their product away for free, and plays no direct role in piracy on the Internet, to shoulder the overhead of implementing digital rights management.
Furthermore, "sendmail" is such a widespread product that E-Mail on the Internet would effectively end if all copies of "sendmail" were
simultaneously disabled.
The SSSCA will take broad sectors of the IT market into violation of the law with the stroke of a pen. These sectors will include the entire free software movement, including one of my favorite companies, Red Hat Software (one of the most successful IPOs of 1999).
The damage to our information information infrastructure will be incalcuable should this legislation be enacted.
This legislation is a result of the lobbying efforts of the MPAA and the RIIA, who rightly desire some control over the perfusion of their digital content. Such content controls could easily be made voluntary by including a small message in an MP3 asking the user to purchase a legitimate copy of the work if a license key was not found in a local encyption key cache.
Instead, these media organizations wish to trample our constitutional protections on freedom of speech and fair use, and take the economy along with it.
Let there be no mistake; this legislation is a disaster. I urge you to vote against it.
So you are saying the ONLY reason someone would EVER want to create is to make a profit? No profit = nothing created??
Explain Linux then.
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
Wow, those congress people must have debated long and hard on that part. Imagine making publishing a copywritten work a crime. Maybe they can pass a law against murder too.
Hey Disney, get a clue. If I don't have any qualms about giving my friend a copy Fantasia, what makes you think I'm going to care about giving them a copy of DeCSS?
The key to controlling a population is to make everyone a secret criminal. If you make it overt, then people won't be worried about being exposed, and you can't blackmail them anymore. Worse, you miss out on important tax opportunities.
From the article:
But some technology companies and consumer advocates have opposed the bill, saying they fear it would instigate too much government regulation and oversight.
Hmmm.... Completely misses some of the legitimate concerns of the industry and consumer groups and marginalizes them. Good journalism? I think not....
Real concerns:
1: it could kill open source.
2: may be in violation of trade treaties (hence be unconstitutional)
3: severely damage the tech industry's ability to compete with overseas competitiors in other countries.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
In Afghanistan they are now getting the rights to learn, and here in the US we are going on the path to taking them away.
I used to remember when you would go to prison in the Soviet Union for exercising your God-given right to free speech, and the US was free - now it seems the US and Russia have changed places. Just ask Sklyarov.
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
With that shirt came a copy of DeCCS. I think that making a copy, sending it to a representative, and letting him know that he is now a criminal should be a good way to get the point across. Then explaining how the SSSCA is 10 times worse should let him know how justified it is that many people hate this.
This Wiki Feeds You TV and Anime - vidwiki.org
That's not enough. Do you truly think that "content providers" in your own country aren't interested in keeping a stranglehold on access to their "intellectual property"?
Don't be complacent - if the US actually passes this hideous law, this will affect manufacturers all over the world, and certainly media companies in other countries will add their voices to pressure from the US Government to get your country to implement similar laws...as is currently happening with DMCA-like laws and software-patent laws in Europe.
The time to act against this is NOW, not after a few months of smugness that "it only affects the US", before these travesties of legislation start getting exported to the rest of the world.
Hacker Public Radio is our Friend
Anyway, I was plastering my bathroom last night; I don't want the FBI at my house over the residue.
Thats right, Don't bother. Instead write to the CEO's of the companies that make our computers. Michael Dell has alot of clout, when he talks, people listen, including President Bush. If he and his fellow CEO's can be convinced that the SSSCA is bad for business, they themselves will lobby congress for us. CEO's get alot less mail than Politicians, they also take Email seriously. To a Politician we are a small demographic, easily ignored, but to Michael Dell and his peers, we are customers, or potential customers, we are their bread and butter, we are the ones who pay for thier $20 million dollar houses. If each one of the CEO's of the top 5 OEM's recieves even a 1000 emails, they will listen. As always, be polite, be clear, but make them understand, that we vote with our money.
"Our products just aren't engineered for security,"
-Brian Valentine,VP in charge of MS Windows Development
Are there any web sites tracking/discussing this whole mess?
The solution is already known -- encrypt the file and sign it to the purchaser so that the purchaser has to use his key to access it in usable form. If the original file shows up in illegal distribution, the signature leads straight to the source. If it shows up in some reduced-quality version -- well, nothing can be done to prevent that anyway, because nothing can stop people from pointing cameras and microphones at the final output.
Of course, this requires publishers to run server farms with enough power to do an industrial strength encryption for each purchase. Boo frickin' hoo.
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
The big question is where does one go? The EU might follow suit under pressure from Herr Hollings and his henchmen, same for Canada. Australia seems to be almost as bad in the stupid legislation department, and I'm not thrilled with the idea of going to Japan. New Zealand maybe?
Dyolf Knip
I sent an email to Maria Cantwell, who not only is my state's senator but, as a former executive at RealNetworks, is presumably more tech-savvy than other senators. Here's the reply:
Dear Mr. Vasquez:
Thank you for contacting me about the Security Systems Standards and
Certification Act (SSSCA). I appreciate hearing your concerns.
The SSSCA has not yet been introduced in the U.S. Senate or House of
Representatives, nor does it exist in final form. A member of my staff
has been in contact with the office of Senator Hollings, who is one of the
authors of the SSSCA along with Senator Stevens. I was informed that the
SSSCA is yet to be completed, and the timeline for the introduction of the
SSSCA is uncertain at this point. The early draft that was made publicly
available on the Internet, to which your comments are likely directed, may
be significantly different from the legislation that may be introduced by
Senators Hollings and Stevens.
I understand your concern that we must work to achieve the right balance
between protecting copyrights and remunerating the creators of those works
and reasonable consumer use of copyrighted works. Indeed, the pace of
innovation requires a diligent consideration of both of these interests.
I believe that the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DCMA) passed in 1998
helps to accomplish this goal. I feel we need to continue to encourage
innovation in technology while protecting the intellectual property rights
of inventors, artists, authors and musicians. This law prohibits
circumvention of technological protection measures and the trafficking of
such technology. Thus, the DMCA facilitates legitimate distribution of
copyrighted work by allowing for the use of technological measures by the
copyright holder and providing legal protections for those measures.
However, you should know that I will not be supportive of legislation that
unduly limits technological innovation or consumers' rights.
At this relatively early point in the development of digital distribution
of copyrighted works, the U.S. Copyright Office has recommended that
Congress make no significant changes to copyright law right now. As a
member of the Judiciary Committee, which has jurisdiction over copyright
law, I will be actively considering these issues. Please be assured that
should the SSSCA come before the Senate, I will keep your concerns in
mind.
Again, thank you for contacting me, and please do not hesitate to do so in
the future if I can be of further assistance.
Sincerely,
Maria Cantwell
United States Senator
Apart from the bit about the DMCA, it looks pretty promising.
--- Work, worry, consume, die. It's a wonderful life. -- Bill Griffith
MS would be able to shut down everyone, not just Linux. They have a patent on DRM OS, so if this goes through, you'd have to license it from them. If they don't want to...
Dyolf Knip
It's 2020. You want to watch a movie at home.
Your choices:
1) MegaAssault ("Arnold Schwarzenegger, as an man involuntarily committed to the old folks home, must escape using only the minigun that his old war buddy smuggled in disguised as a tennis racket"). $49.95, one-time-play solid state video device.
2) Something good by an actual artist. $49.95, play as much as you want, keep it and show it to friends when they visit.
Of course, if you go for option 1, you'll have to put a dollar into your SSVD player every fifteen minutes to keep the movie going. You'll also have to clean up the mess after the SSVD melts itself at the end of the movie (don't worry, it's a myth that these things can explode rather than melting, we promise).
Next, you'll have to report to the Entertainment Clinic, where they will perform brain surgery to remove all memories of the movie, so you'll have to buy another copy if you want to think about it.
They'll be monitoring your email, too, to make sure you don't tell anyone anything about the movie (in case the brain wipe didn't take). And one out of 10 times you watch a Hollywood movie, your house will be raided by the police (motto: "To protect and serve Hollywood"), who will search for any illegal copies you might have made.
Option 2 is looking better and better, isn't it?
Cheers
-b
If I wanted a sig I would have filled in that stupid box.
Here in Idaho, I've noticed a number of places selling "Edited Movies". Presumably, these are legally-purchased originals, with "objectionable" material edited or "bleeped" out (I haven't been inside any of these shops nor watched an "edited movie", so I'm assuming here.)
While VHS is still available, one still has the basic ability to physically "cut" out "objectionable" portions. Once VHS fades from the market, though, under current DMCA and even more so under legislation like this, created "edited movies" will be ILLEGAL, regardless of the "first sale" doctrine, because to create an "edited" movie from digital media, you must COPY it.
While I personally wouldn't touch an "edited" movie, I think allowing someone to "edit" legally purchased material - and even re-sell it (emphasis there - I'm talking about selling the original material (which even under the proposed law is, so far, still legal) along with the "edited" fair-use copy, not keeping the original and only selling the "edited" copy) is plainly "fair use". Face it - squeamish or prudish citizens are still citizens nonetheless, and deserve their fair-use rights.
Hacker Public Radio is our Friend
Well, of course the corporations are "in pursuit of money". What do you think they opened up a business for in the first place? Free hand-outs and free labor?
The statement that "people have ideals and ethics; companies do not" bothers me though.
This belief trivializes the fact that behind every business is an individual, or small group of individuals, who brought it to fruition - and who guides it daily.
If a company "has no ethics", that merely shows that its C.E.O., board of directors, and other upper-level management have no ethics.
I never "thought the tech companies were different than other megacorps because they were started by people like us"! That's a pretty self-centered and foolish remark for anyone to make.
People "like me" are motivated by greed and money, just like people in any other profession.
When given the opportunity to hide behind a slew of employees working under you, not to mention behind a respected brand name, would you still "do the right thing" all the time, even when it means losing a lot of potential profit for yourself?
Maybe you would.... but statistically, a *lot* of people wouldn't, no matter what industry they work in.
Tsk tsk.
... )
Imperialist nations gained wealth by colonizing. Coperate imperialism is essentially the same thing:
a) Replace colonization with foreign investment.
b) Replace the imperial armies with the WTO (which has more international legal power than the UN, to put that in perspective)
c) Colonization usually occured when a country had no means of protecting themselves. Today, most countries have guns (tho, ironically, this is in part thanks to American industries), and thus colonization by force would be much more bloody and descructive to the colonizers than it was in many other situations. (I'm talking about the intial colonizations, as many colonies staged a revolt once they had sufficient firepower.)
d)Infmation and media gets around much quicker these days, so colonization must be more undercover and subtle. (See the IMF
> one in five people in the U.S. is either an immigrant or a first-generation American
Not much of a point if you accept (and this is of course very subjective):
a) That the conditions in many countries are due to economic conditions and pressures stemming from the scale and success of the American economy. People have to move because much of the conditions in their home countries are due to governments being bought by large multinationals or multinationals investing in a country, only to pollute it or destroy the quality of life there through competition or otherwise.
b) People's impressions of the US come through the media, which is heavily filtered. I don't know how many immigrants I've met who had a totally different view of what living in North America would be like.
c) The US offers high salaries to educated folks. Hell, in Canada, where no doctor is in *any* danger of starving, our doctors are moving down there for the higher wages, which is much of the reason your healthcare is expensive, and our health care has extremely long wait times. (Which is interesting, as it runs counter to the American economic system's usual 'most efficient use of resources' claim.)
You can't paint imperialist nations as evil war mongers, and then say the US is all good because they dont send over an army to take over countries. The US has far more efficient, effective, and equally destructive means' (see Columbia) of taking over other nations.
Which isn't to say the US is evil. It's just to say that you're only judging the 'goodness' of the US by comparing its practices against practices of old. Different times, different cultures, different economic system, different everything. The end result is the same tho - the US enjoys unprecedented power over the entire world. Even the other Imperialist nations didn't have the economic (which is to say power over policy and decision making world-wide) might the US currently enjoys. Compare China today to China 300 years ago, and you could say they are 'saints' today. Yet we know better (although it didn't stop the US from letting them into the WTO, interestingly enough.)
"Old man yells at systemd"
"Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison." - Thoreau, Civil Disobedience
.mp3/.ogg/etc? Sure. What's to keep those files from being shared? Nothing. We need to get the attitude of "give some money to the people that entertain you" back in this country.
I know I'll be flamed to Redmond and back for this, but do we have the right to read/view/hear materials for which we have paid NO MONEY to the people who created / distributed / promoted them? Justify that. Please. I'm very interested. Now, I'm not exactly innocent; I've used Napster quite a bit. But because of that, I've become a fan of several bands I'd not known about before, bought their CDs, and plan to see them next time thery tour through SF.
I've heard the, "Well, I wouldn't buy the music/movie/game anyway, so they wouldn't make anything from it either way." argument. Faeces tauri. If it's good enough to listen to, good enough to use backup space/CD-Rs on, good enough to spend hours playing or watching, it's good enough to pay for. Believe me, I used to run Win95 *and* Office *and* have various games and mp3s within a gig. I had to prune mercilessly more than once and make decisions about what I really valued. Most of that music, I ended up buying anyway, save what I couldn't find (anime soundtracks, etc).
Corporations, like all entities, have to act in their own survival interest. No, it's not nice of them to want to restrict what we do with our computers. It's downright draconian to lock us into Microsoft's "trusted" operating systems. But, guess what? We haven't given them a choice. If filesharing becomes much more widespread, the whole RIAA/MPAA house of cards will fall over - good, you say? - yes, but there will be nothing to replace it. Will artists release their own songs on
Having said all that, I still hope this is defeated on some grounds. I don't hold out much hope. Our Senate serves the Almighty dollar (In Profit We Trust), not the people they're supposed to serve. And anything the clueful might try to change with their votes will be lost in the noise.
"He's got to make a living, or move to Russia..." - Moxy Fruvous, River Valley
if the answer isn't violence, neither is your silence / freedom of expression doesn't make it alright
Send a letter telling of your lifelong support of the Democratic Party and why you do not like this bill together with a copy of your check made out the the Green Party of South Carolina. Send a copy of this letter and the copied check to the Democratic National Comittee. Fritz and his folks will get a clue really fast this way.
That is all.
Interesting quote. Here's another one that's, I think, closely related:
Another that's been making the rounds lately:
All of these seem particularly apropos to what's been going on in the U.S. Congress lately. Crimeny if these hearings (along with the Enron fiasco) aren't reason enough to institute strict campaign contribution regulations then I don't know what is. One wonder what might have been had buggy whip manufacturers had deeper pockets...
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
I imagine your response, based on the above, would be to issue a stirring war-cry, exclaim that they'll have nothing of yours, and proceed to attack the nearest one. They, of course, kill you with nary another thought and proceed to do whatever's on their mind, or maybe even let you sit on the sideline whining and bitching about it while they do whatever they want anyway.
What I'm suggesting is you deal with the situation, realize you have no power and nothing to stand on, and attempt, though it may seem like horrible odds, to barter and cajole at least some kind of compromise. In line with your sick analogy above, if you could even spare one daughter, or maybe just not get everyone killed, you've at least achieved something.
Your suggestion is basically to stage a well-pricipled, token resistance that will quickly and certainly be swept aside and prove meaningless in the end. I do not agree.
Please Rate my comment (and help support Fre
enter the public domain. NEVER, NEVER, NEVER will the copyright expire, unless and until Disney goes bankrupt. Even then it may not, because maybe Microsoft will have bought their copyrights.
For Steamboat Willie, Snow White, and the gang, 'limited duration' means that someday the Sun will go nova, and we may not have interstellar travel by then. Beyond that, there is still an eternity between 'no available energy' and proton decay or the next brane collision, in case we do develop interstellar travel.
The real problem with this isn't Steamboat Willie, Snow White, and the gang - it's the rest of the stuff that gets dragged along in the long-copyright game, too.
I suggest that free copyright be rolled back to the original 14/28 year limits. Beyond that, you have to pay to renew. This way, corporate jewels can be retained. But the rest is released, for simple economic reasons - it's too expensive to keep renewing, and drains the bottom line.
There are details, there needs to be a concept of 'related works' to handle serialized stories or a collection of source code. But the test needs to be tight, because the Star Wars movies really should count as separate works, as should the James Bond movies.
Besides, fee-based copyright extension should appeal to Congress, since it gives the government money. At the same time, for us it starts most copyrights expiring, again. (in our lifetimes) It should also be sufficient to force some expiration mechanism into the DMCA.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
...richie - It is a good day to code.
But ordinary people won't pay for the ``professional'' grade of equipment that will be mandatory if you're going to create content. And it surely won't be long before you'll need to have a license to distribute content. So you better just shut up and leave content creation to Disney and other people who know what's best for you.
I hear they're working making `possession of free will' a felony as well.
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
I see you're an optimist too... :)
I like your fee based copyright idea. I read in another post (was this you), where a guy suggested the following:
1. Copyrights are limited to 10 years
2. After that, they can be renewed for a fee, start at something like $10,000.
3. The fee doubles every year.
11: $10,000
12: $20,000
13: $40,000
14: $80,000
15: $160,000
16: $320,000
17: $640,000
18: $1,280,000
19: $2,560,000
20: $5,120,000
21: $10,240,000
22: $20,480,000
23: $40,960,000
24: $81,920,000
25: $163,840,000
26: $327,680,000
27: $655,360,000
28: $1,310,720,000
29: $2,621,440,000
30: $5,242,880,000
"Communism is like having one [local] phone company " - Lenny Bruce
ok.. you almost have the handbasket... now be nice little sheep, get in. yes, now push off, and you'll be in hell in no time.
//rdj
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
--Sheikh Abd-Al-Kadir, 1587
It has not escaped my attention that Sen. Hollings hails from a state that, AFAIK, has absolutely nothing to do with the media industry, tech industry, or their adversaries. As such, any legislation he pursues in this arena will have little or no effect on his ability to be re-elected or to receive perks from the industry, despite what others may think.
---If you can't trust a nerd, who can you trust?
Keep that feeling close to your heart, but don't let hate overtake you. Tell your friends, and urge them to tell their parents and others. Network - get the word out more.
I am sorry this is happening now - it makes me just as angry, and just as sad to see this kind of thing happen - but we must keeping fighting it.
Only when we give up do they win.
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
Senator Hollings's office,
This letter is being addressed to your office for your capacity as Chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee and co-sponsor of the proposed legislation the Security Systems Standards and Certification Act (SSSCA). The legislation that you are proposing will have a definite, immediate, and chilling effect on the economic growth of the technology and entertainment industries for the foreseeable future.
I would like to point out that your legislation intends on preventing free market forces from being allowed to shape the economic growth of these industries by creating artificial barriers intended to maintain the current balance of power/wealth held by the copyright holders. This is very similar to the competition felt by the railroad industry from the automobile, in that both the railroad and record/movie labels depended upon their absolute control over all major distribution channels for their sources of revenue (the record industry receives 94% of total revenue from CD sales). The PC/internet is like the automobile/highway system in that it frees the masses from having to rely on a bulky, inefficient, and tightly controlled distribution channel that allows for illegal price fixing, for which the record industry has been found guilty of in the past. I am not an advocate of any form of piracy because if the government were to allow the markets to naturally rebalance themselves, they could now do so in such a way that piracy would no longer be an attractive option for consumers, unless you feel that every citizen is a thief at heart. This would be do to the volume of scale involved with the internet distribution of data including songs and movies.
To illustrate this point the average cost per song on a CD is ~$2 for the consumer. This $2 includes certain privileges like owning the physical media, protective case, label and lyrics, the ability to create copies for personal use within the fair use doctrine, unlimited listening, portability, and then the right to sell the CD provided that you don't keep any copies. Under the current overpriced CD distribution scheme, very few successful CDs will sell a million or more copies. By contrast is the reported popularity of some pirated songs on the Internet which regularly exceeded ten million downloads. If the record companies were to offer their songs for sale on the internet with the legal right to download the songs, giving the buyers full fair-use privileges, the ability to create playable audio CDs, unlimited listening ability, and portability for a cost that reflects the volume of scale, lack of overhead, and fair profit margins they would see immediate, dramatic, and profitable sales.
Instead these companies are moving their businesses online in a way that allows them to continue to maintain the same near absolute control over the online music industry that was had by their control over the traditional distribution channels. Should the railroads been given control over all highways? If allowed to continue, your proposed legislation will allow these industries to continue their abuses on the consumers by way of forcing consumers to pay every time they listen to a song/see a movie/read a book, without regard to any legal fair use. As proof of their true intensions the record industries current online ventures have proposed an insulting royalty payments from online sales to the artists they claim to represent/protect. Some of these songs being sold online by the record companies don't even have a legal right to sell online, and the artists' who own the online rights are threatening them with lawsuits and sending cease and desist orders, which the record industry has chooses to ignore.
To end I would like to include a quote from Robert Heinlein's "Life-Line"
"There has grown up in the minds of certain groups in this country the notion that because a man or corporation has made a profit out of the public for a number of years, the government and the courts are charged with the duty of guaranteeing such profit in the future, even in the face of changing circumstances and contrary to public interest. This strange doctrine is not supported by statute or common law. Neither individuals nor corporations have any right to come into court and ask that the clock of history be stopped, or turned back."
All opinions expressed within are mine alone and by no means represent those of my employer.
I have seen a couple links about people saying they should write their congress-person(sic?) but seeing as this is a bill in the Senate wouldn't it be better to write your Senator? Heck you can email them these days (probably a better chance of getting through with all the anthrax scares).
This is the final straw which has caused me to actually get off my ass and gather all of the legal info I could find about setting up a PAC (i.e, should be a 503 (1)(c)(4) nonprofit, and all of the accounting and tax rules). This is all from 26 USC 501 & 527.
I hope to read through all of this information, hopefully this weekend. If I think I understand it sufficiently I'll go through the process of actually registering a corporation (by default here in PA, unless anyone has any good reason it should be somewhere else and practical advice on doing it that way).
Assuming I get that far, I'll submit a story to Slashdot w/ all of the particulars inlcuding what I've done so far and what I think I'll need in terms of support resources (people, services, etc).
Anyone w/ any more ideas, info & suggestions is of course free to post here or email them to me.
What they do in Washington is irrelevant to the real world anyway.
Just be sure to wear the gold uniform when you beam down -- you know what happens when you wear the red one.
Read this before you start writing checks (unless you're loaded, in which case write as many as you want).
The SSSCA is the biggest opportunity for corporate jujitsu ever offered consumers. I assert that iff the SSSCA is written so that the -ability to assert controls- is not specific to a few, but is available to the many, it is a recording industry death blow.
The recording industry consists of specialists of various kinds. Some of these even have (or had) to do with the sound quality of recorded music (I'll just talk about recorded music and forget about movies, try extending what I say yourself). People who knew how to run a disc cutter, for example, were contributors to the sonic excellence - or lack thereof - of a given disc.
These specialists' work has largely been outmoded by digital copying. Much recorded music is only ever represented digitally until it's played back. And as the recording industry has become aware, digital storage and retrieval is something many consumers can do.
The recording industry -hires- talent. It does not have the talent as 'employees' but as a sort of hybrid of employees, contractors and indentured servants. The talent, not the recording industry, provides the product. The recording industry provides the package. For this service they receive the bulk of the money paid for the product generated by the talent.
Such a package isn't needed any more. When talent itself realizes this, they may decide the recording industry doesn't help them, and -iff they can assert their own content controls-, the recording industry can be cut out of the value equation. This means that talent will be able to -write their own contracts- based on the type and severity of copy controls they themselves wish to assert.
This does not mean copy controls won't be broken. It does, however, mean that less-severe copy controls will be seen as they should be, enhancement of the work's value, and below a certain point it won't be economically feasible to infringe the work's copyright at a profit. It will then fall to the -talent- to decide what point they will accept as correct.
Look at what else it does: imagine a perfect means exists of forcing a one-cent direct payment to listen to a recorded work of Bill Nelson's. (I am not saying this is good, I am just asking your suspension of disbelief for a few seconds.) Now, if Bill earns a million euros from people listening to "Atom Man Loves Radium Girl" he may conclude that he can wring more money out of that song, right? Wrong. If the content controls are a contract, they aren't subject to change. Your copy grants specific rights, -whatever they happen to be-. Would they be change-able? Impractical and probably fraudulent. Now Bill might re-issue the song with a more interesting mix, and raise the bar, but the existing work comes with a -contract- the artist himself said was OK.
Bill might price himself out of the market with the re-mix. In that case, he'd get lots of pennies from the old version and hardly any from the new. That is OK, right? "Oops, too much for that song, next one better be cheaper."
This is distribution, all right, and it lets the artists decide what they get for their work. All it takes is that the ability to assign content controls be available to anyone who wants to do it.
Therefore, if you are going to write to your favorite politician about SSSCA, please, don't ask them not to pass it. Ask them instead to make sure evenhanded assertion of copyright is available to everyone through the mechanism of SSSCA, and that the copyright agreements mediated or enforced by SSSCA mechanisms be considered contractual.
Actually, what the entertainment industry wants is impossible. Once the code is cracked and the watermark is removed, there's nothing to stop someone from making illegal copies distributing it or even "re-protecting" it with a bogus watermark.
People who pirate content online are already breaking the law. What's going to stop them from breaking this one?
No, the problem here isn't a question of insufficient law. It's an intractable problem of enforcement. I can the "War on Content" looming in the future, just like the long forgotten wars on drugs and terrorism.
Sheesh! This law is already out of date and it's not even a bill, yet!
Just be sure to wear the gold uniform when you beam down -- you know what happens when you wear the red one.
Hasn't the good senator heard? It's already government policy to select winners and losers. Or was he napping when the DoJ handed Microsoft that `get out of jail free' card?
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Doubtful that this could ever happen for movies. I suppose a bunch of renegade actors/actresses could band together and produce a movie that they distributed themselves. It'd better be of a higher quality than Blair Witch though. They'd be pretty hard pressed to include all the glitzy CGI effects that today's sheeple need in order to be entertained.
Musicians have much better chance to pull this off. I'd bet that some musicians could go over to a friend's house, turn on the recorder while they're playing in the living room, and wind up with a better product than the drek that you find in most CD bins nowadays.
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Pro is the opposite of con. You do the math.
Just be sure to wear the gold uniform when you beam down -- you know what happens when you wear the red one.
Yah. Isn't it odd that inversely proprotional relationship. If it doesn't matter we have tons of choices. If it really matters, we're lucky to have any alternatives at all.
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We could only be so lucky. Hopefully it'd take them...um, let's see: life expectancy is X and I'm currently Y. Let's hope it takes X - Y + 10 years. That'd be just great.
Which is why, when companies like Disney lobbied for copyright extensions, they made sure the law was written to be retroactive. They haven't created anything in recent years that is as high a quality as the stuff that was produced 40-50 years ago. Michael Eisner's job is now much easier since he doesn't have to actually have keep producing new, high quality content. Just keep repackaging the older material in news ways and re-releasing it. These guys don't give a damn if the copyright doesn't end until after they, you, and I are dead. They'll still be making a ton of money. That's all they care about.
``In technology news... reports of a 1 DIP abacus sent technology stocks soaring. Industry officials stated that the `The ability to perform ten operations per second has been a long time in developing in the 20 years since the passing of the old computer era that was legislated out of existence by the DMCA and SSSCA.'. A spokeperson from the MPAA warned that this new technology could be yet another threat to the rights of copyright holders and they are closely watch its development.''
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Wow! All the discussions we've had about SPAM lately, and this would be the perfect way to get the word out and for SPAMmers to redeem themselves a little.. I like this idea.
Let's take things a little further.. The email addresses need to be sorted by physical address and interests.. The best way I can think to do this would be to link up with Doubleclick.. I don't like that idea, but hear me out... If we have the physical address we can provide the recipient with information necessary for contacting their congresscritter.. With information on the recipients interests (purchasing habits, religieous and sexual orientation, etc.) the letter could be tuned to prompt action..
Okay, folks.. Time to get cranking on those perl scripts..
The SSSCA defines an "interactive digital device" so broadly, even software is included.
Things covered as "interactive digital devices":
Linux
the "cp" command
A digital thermostat
A digital watch
and more...
Read the law - it is very broadly constructed.
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
The SSSCA could require it in the processor. Now what do you do?
Anyway, if you ever wanted to visit the USA, you'd have to never deal in non-compliant hardware or violate the SSSCA in any other manner even though you live outside the USA.
Sklyarov visited Las Vegas and was arrested here for things he did in Russia which were and are legal there.
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
For more on how the government is in collusion with large corporations on trying to maintain the status quo while at the same time whittling away at Constitutional rights using vehicles like the SSSCA, I refer you to Stupid White Men by Michael Moore. I submitted the publication of his book as a slashdot story (thinking it might be as newsworthy as some minor kernel change - guess I was wrong), only to have it rejected. Here's the excerpt for folks who want to know more about the SSSCA, the government, and related legislation:
Michael Moore, who some slackers might remember from TV Nation fame, has finally managed to get his book Stupid White Men published - no small feat when the men in question run the White House and America seems to be willing to forgive them even scandals like Enron. Quite a change from just a couple of years ago when a cigar and some oral hanky-panky could get a president impeached, eh? You can buy the book from from a number of different online stores, and if you're lucky you just might find it in a regular brick-and-mortar store as well. Bush-lovers and right-wingers be warned: this isn't your bedtime reading material of choice.
Max
My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?
Look at the unconstitutional prosecution of Laura Kriho mentioned on the Fully Informed Jury Association web site.
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
Agreed. We need to get this straight:
The following qualifies as a "protection measure":
y = x ^ 1
1 bit encryption, completely exportable, trvial to implement and very fast. It is trivial to break, but it still gets you DMCA protection.
Breakability isn't the issue. Illegality is.
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
For those who think the tech industry can provide a 'more reasonable solution,' think again. Any DRM system is based fundamentally on encryption and obfuscation. The only way it can 'work' is if all hardware and software involved is proprietary, because otherwise, it would be trivial to break. Somewhere, the decryption key(s) must be transmitted and stored. This is partly why CSS was cracked so easily. There's no need to brute-force the keyspace if you can disassemble the crypto mechanism itself. Obviously, this is what DMCA was designed to fight against. Because the user has physical access to both the ciphertext and key, encryption becomes only an obfuscation technique. So anyways, because OS-level software must be involved if you're going to design a complete computer system this way, the code for it must be proprietary. Otherwise, you could just watch the plaintext and/or keys being passed back and forth throughout authentication and playback. The possible implications for Open Source software and operating systems are fairly obvious. For example, how is the Linux kernel supposed to access a disk if the ATA and SCSI interfaces themselves require authentication? You could use a proprietary module, but at such a low level, what would talk it? The whole VM subsystem would have to be proprietary too.. and the video subsystem, and sound.. and eventually, you wouldn't even have the Linux kernel anymore. Then you move beyond the kernel and every application that touches "protected" content must be fully proprietary along with all libraries used and any interfaces with the rest of the system, probably X included. Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems as if SSSCA would, in effect, make nearly all Open Source software illegal. And if SSSCA doesn't get passed and the tech industry comes up with it's own solution, the DMCA will then make Open Source software illegal on new hardware because the only way it could work is by breaking the whole DRM scheme.
That being said, I really doubt this kinda crap will go through. The tech industry realizes full well the possible ramifications.
It does sound like a conspiracy theory, but listen to it this way: "If you want your music to be heard on the latest generation of equipment, you just have to sign with us." It makes a certain, twisted sense, but I think it's just an unintended, but welcome side effect.
Though, I think it will cause a lot of talent to either go outside the country or stagnate.
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The RIAA and MPAA already see none of my current salary. If this crazy, insane law gets passed, I'll spend the next eighteen months or so saving as much as I can and buying as much non-crippled hardware as I can and then moving somewhere like Antigua, where I can be fairly happy (already have friends there), where they don't believe in copyright, and grab Direct TV's signal without paying for it.
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Do you have any idea how many bits and bytes are generated or acquired and stored on a daily basis by the scientists and engineers of this fair country?
Restricting the ability to move around and manipulate reams of digital data will hinder research efforts and bring the livelihood of of our country to a halt.. These idiots in congress need to have their heads yanked from their arses and examined!..
Unfortunately I know of no ethics framework other then satanism which tells people to accumulate wealth. Certainly none of the traditional religions which form the core of our ethics system do. Jesus, budha, mohammed all preached a life of simplicity and charity. Of the three mohammed was the most "earthly" and even he commanded his people to tithe 10%. Jesus certainly had problems with wealth accumulation and budha of course preached a life of poverty pretty much.
The first commandment of capitalism (and therefore corporations) is "tho shalt accumulate as much wealth as possible". At the opposite end of that you have "it is harder for a rich man to get into heaven then a camel to go through the eye of a needle". It's the american cognitive dissonance engine. In god we trust, after wealth we toil.
War is necrophilia.
And that's what I'm saying: companies should be allowed to implement whatever anti-copying technologies they wish with no government interference, and we will simply buy into it or not as DIVX proves. I completely agree that government should not mandate the use of such technologies, but I also feel companies are well within their rights to impose them on their own, as was the case with DIVX.
Please Rate my comment (and help support Fre
Dear Senator Feinstein,
I am a constituent writing to you regarding the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee's hearings on 2/28/2002 regarding intellectual property protection requirements for computers and digital devices, and the draft Security Systems Standards and Certification Act (SSSCA) by Senator Hollings.
Few would argue against Hollywood's goal of preventing the distribution of reproduced copies of copyright-protected content. However adopting the proposal in the draft SSSCA would be terribly destructive because in pursuit of this goal it both forecloses digital viewing of independently created content, and takes all reasonable control away from the content purchaser. It is not my place to suggest possible alternate means of achieving their goal, however I would like to point out some of the problems in the proposal, in hopes that you will come to agree with me that significant further study is needed before the concept of any Federally mandated measure could begin to be entertained.
To understand the problems with draft SSSCA, some background facts need to be appreciated.
First, it is important to understand that the Internet to date has been a medium of free exchange of expression. Its technical architecture is fundamentally based on the assumption that getting information from sender to recipient is the goal. This assumption is so deeply-seated that if communication is ever blocked, the Internet itself seeks out another route. In this regard, the Internet is like an error-resistant Post Office, faithfully delivering messages with admirable determination. Together with nearly universal access, it is this highly democratic, forum-like characteristic that has made the technology, culture, and, yes, the business boom of the Internet possible -- marking one of America's great modern achievements.
Second, as computers have spread throughout society, the creativity of private US citizens has increasingly transpired not on paper or canvas or in the concert hall, but on the computer. People are making media, from children at school, through to neighborhood rock bands recording albums at home, to artists creating digital paintings and collage works. Digital photography, for example, is a creative medium intimately linked to the computer in the home.
Third, in the world of computers and the Internet, every creation takes the same essential form -- a file (sometimes called a 'stream') is a sequence of 1's and 0's. All digital content, whether music recording, love sonnet, or home movie, is stored on a hard drive and transmitted over the Internet as a file. Due to the nature of computers, there is no other possibility.
Let us also quickly review the essential legal nature of copyright:
1. Not all content is protected by copyright.
2. All copyrighted content may be legally used in numerous ways that its publisher would prefer not to occur.
3. Copyright is temporary, not permanent, per the US Constitution.
4. After copyright expires, works are intended to pass into the public domain for use by all citizens.
5. Because of 3, all content eventually becomes unprotected by copyright.
Now then. The draft SSSCA would change all computers -- indeed, all digital devices -- to reject all digital content that is not stamped with information telling how the publisher says it can be used. This turns the free transmission principle on its head, utterly. Rather than a medium of free communication, it would make the Internet and all the computers attached to it a place where only certain, specifically authorized, pieces of content could be found.
This is where a world of complicated problems enter the picture, and is why the draft SSSCA cannot be accepted.
There are more problems than I can list with the draft SSSCA, so let me concentrate on a 'Top 10' list of the worst ones that I can see:
1. It would end the Internet's value as a public commons for speech, since only 'authorized' speech bearing the stamp could take place there. The importance of this factor cannot be overstated, and should make the draft SSSCA an affront to any guardian of the public sphere, not to mention vulnerable to Constitutional challenge.
2. No computer (or device) would be able to play any piece of digital media lacking the stamp. This has many serious implications, the most obvious of which is that no computer or device would be able to play such common locally-created items as children's movies or animations created in school, home photographs, and so on. Only 'brand-name' entertainment would be possible. While this is a laughable scenario, close reading of the draft SSSCA would appear to require it.
3. In the proposed scheme, any hobby or volunteer art, or promotional content, created with the intention of being shared freely (e.g. not stamped) would be excluded. For example, music directly published for sharing by the artists who created it, unaffiliated with any major publisher. This is not only undemocratic and a governmental interference with free speech, it also raises serious issues of government-sanctioned market protectionism by keeping independent content away from the digital audience.
4. In the proposed scheme, the stamp becomes equivalent to permission to publish expression to the American public. This is fundamentally against the free speech principle. Speech must not require permission.
5. Requiring a stamp sounds suspicious enough, but much more so when we ask: Who issues the stamp? Will there be a cost? What should the cost be? Will all applicants be treated fairly? Since the stamp is prerequisite to -any- display on -any- computer or device, these questions are crucial. Can an entertainment industry entity be trusted with this gatekeeper duty? Is it wise or appropriate to have such a universal gatekeeper at all? How can having a designated universal gatekeeper be consistent with free speech?
6. Currently any challenges regarding the originality of a work are brought to civil court under the Copyright Act, after publication of the work. Under the SSSCA scheme, stamp denials could occur before publication. So if stamps were to be issued by the Government, there would be Constitutional questions of governmental prior restraint. Troubling questions, too, since the question of originality is frequently ambiguous, making the process vulnerable to charges of censorship under color of authority.
7. No computer (or device) would be able to allow the owner unprotected access to any piece of digital media containing the DRM stamp. This has many serious implications, including preventing wholly reasonable and otherwise legally sanctioned 'fair uses' of the content by the customer. For example, space-shifting (making an MP3 file from an album for listening while exercising) or format-shifting (copying onto a laptop computer for listening during a business trip) or making a back-up copy in case the purchased copy is ever damaged.
8. The proposed scope of 'All interactive digital devices' is indefensibly broad, not to mention the fact that it indicates a troublingly naive picture of the digital world. Despite having no way to receive files, typewriters and thermometers are digital and interactive and so could be required to implement useless and expensive content management technology. Similarly, there are any number of interactive digital devices and components not intended as media players whose technical functionality and/or cost would simply be made unfeasible by attempting to add rights-management features. So a certain quality of 'magical thinking' about how technology works and what is in fact possible is in evidence. We can be certain that the SSSCA was not drafted with the involvement of anyone who ever engineered any digital device, and this alone is reason for much further study.
9. The required access control mechanism would survive the copyright's expiration, therefore none of this content will be able to pass into the public domain. This allows publishers to cheat the public out of the Constitutional 'copyright bargain' by hoarding the work after having already harvested the financial benefits of selling it.
10. The draft SSSCA has a bad synergy with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. The DMCA criminalizes the existence and possession of any measure allowing circumvention of access control technologies, irrespective of copyright validity or infringing intent. This cements two of the above SSSCA problems: content that will never pass into the public domain, and content that cannot be reasonably re-used by the legitimate customer. Also, like the DMCA, the penalties are unnecessarily draconian ($500,000/5 years imprisonment), are redundant to the penalties available under the Copyright Act for intentional infringement, do not require an intent to infringe. The SSSCA penalties would also appear to be wholly redundant to the DMCA.
Given all the serious problems listed above, it is extremely distressing that the Committee has entertained the draft SSSCA at all. Please, I would ask you to consider the matter of the SSSCA carefully, and I would urge you to call for further study and a more reasonable, less destructive proposal before further discussion of any possible legislation in this area.
Sincerely,
-- SnogwozzleIf you /really/ want to be like that, then the rest of the world will just ignore you - you can go back to being the isolationist state that you were for many years, and the rest of the world will be happy to avoid you.
.
Interestingly enough, I believe most of AMD's processors are actually fabbed in Europe - Dresden, in fact.
Take a look at this and do the sums - most of AMD's fab's are outside the US.
The US really isn't the centre of the world, you know . .
himi
My very own DeCSS mirror.
The man's obviously NOT acting in the interests of the people of SC, let alone of the nation, but instead acting in the interests of a business that really isn't even IN his constituency. At the very least, you should be building up a campaign of "anything BUT Hollings" for when his term is up. Tell everyone you know about the SSSCA (What it is and what it means- most people when told what this silly law means in laymen's terms, they get really, really pissed off about it...) and that HE's the one that is backing the bill in the Senate. Bluntly, the man is NOT working in the interests of his constituency OR the country as a whole. He doesn't need to hold that office any more.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
...that unregulated things. As someone else put it, it's been shown that it wasn't a good idea in the first place, why do we need the content industries writing their own laws regarding copyright?
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
They're mandating DRM on everything- and if it's really there in a way that's "useful" to the content industries, it will prevent any usages not DRMed.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
Actually, it's worse than that. We have to hope that at least one of the
'certified technologies' is open source and royalty free. Because the law
allows 'reasonable and non-discriminatory' (meaning royalty-encumbered)
technologies - so it's possible that all software will have to pay
license fees to the owner of the technology.
In which case there is no way to integrate the technology into a GPL'd
piece of software. That would be the end of Linux in the US.
I think we (geeks) will eventually be forced to learn politics. And lesson one will probably be that 'the politics of vengeance' doesn't work. Instead of focusing on 'punishing' Hollings for introducing a bad law, in the hope of making an example of him, we need to start a realistic assessment of how different Senators will vote on the law. Now here's the important point: don't waste any energy on the Senators who will definitely vote for the law, like Hillary Clinton who receives huge checks from ??AA. Concentrate on the Senators who really don't care, and would only be voting for the law to earn a point with Hollings. If they don't have a piece of the action, they might be willing to oppose the law if they could earn some money or good publicity by doing so.
Someday we will learn real politics instead of futile ranting. Or else we will end up like the Palestinians.