Chained Melodies

NoData writes: "Salon is running an elegant article that covers the current state of the copy protection and circumvention debate. The article touches on the DMCA and the SSSCA, with input from Touretzky, Lessig, and others. It offers a dystopic vision of a future where geeks battle increasingly complex copy protection schemes until ultimately, any consumer control over media is outlawed outright. Refreshingly, the article is not a "Salon Premium" feature."

Comments

Re:Hollywood's blessing necessary for broadband?

[sulli]

I sell DSL for a living. (Disclaimer: this is my opinion, not that of my employer.) You are absolutely right.

Hollings is FULL OF SHIT to say that people don't buy broadband due to lack of movies online. Why?

1. Movies are available online, albeit in crappy divx format and illegal. But they are there.
2. At least my customers don't make their buying decisions based on this! They buy broadband for standard internet services. Or they don't, because the coverage isn't there, or they don't use the net enough to pay for DSL. Never have I heard this as a reason not to order, or to cancel - and believe me, I have heard 100s of reasons. NEVER.

Look, movies are everywhere. You can buy or rent DVDs on literally any street corner. You can order hundreds of thousands of DVDs and VHS tapes from Amazon and the like. Broadband has nothing to do with it!

My letter-to-the-editor to Salon.

[coats]

Salon says it likes editorial letters short and concise, so here's my reply to their article:

Dear Salon:

Congressional authority with respect to copyright, copy protection, etc, is set by the text of that Supreme Law of the Land, the Constitution of the United States, which grants the power as follows:

To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries...

Note that restriction, "limited times." Such measures as those espoused by the existing DMCA and the proposed SSSCA are legal only if they satisfy the following two conditions:

1) Protection MUST expire upon expiration of copyright; and

2) Protection MUST be forbidden for non-copyright (i.e., public domain) materials.

I do not see either of these conditions required in the existing DMCA nor the proposed SSSCA. Both of these acts are unConstitutional on their faces, and those Congressmen, Presidents, and judges who support them are lawbreakers who are violating their oaths of office.

Sincerely,

Carlie J. Coats, Jr., Ph.D.