Slashdot Mirror
Seeking Arguments Against the CBDTPA?
ccfpark writes "I am going to Washington D.C. next week to talk to my senator (Bill Nelson of FL) and his technology advisor, Reg Lichty, about the CBDTPA. I am personally against this bill as it has the possibility of labeling me as a criminal for my participation in Open Sorce projects such as Handhelds.Org and Tuxscreen, where we endeavor replace proprietary operating systems on consumer electronics with Linux. If this bill is passed it may lead to outlawing these types of activities because it could circumvent software copy protection in these products. What I need are some good resources for formulating a business and political argument against this bill, so that I can speak to these politicians on their level."
Be sure to check out the FAQ at Digital Consumer for plenty of Q & A on the subject.
Also, Rep. Rick Boucher's Copyright Address will probably help you formulate a good argument.
Good Luck!!
1) The activities they are targetting (wide-spread sharing) are already illegal. (Napster is dead.)
2) The law targets all digital devices. (Does this mean that the locks in hotel doors have to have officially approved DRM technology since they are networked?)
3) This would KILL hobbiest efforts (I learned by building computers).
4) Open source is problematic
5) Hollywood is free to invent their own technology.
6) Hollywood is important to the county, but the computer industry is more imporant.
So long as a single non-compliant piece of equipment exists that lets you record a screen or the output of a speaker, circumventing hardware protection is trivial.
Rather than repeating what I've already typed up a couple of times, my thinking about what's really going to have to happen is here.
If I were in the face of a pol on this issue, I would argue as follows:
1. You will infuriate your constituents who have become accustomed to controlling their own music, movies, and PCs (and they will vote against you)
2. You will destroy large numbers of job-creating businesses that work with free and open-source software (and people connected with same will vote against you)
3. You will destroy our liberty, and this is ipso facto a bad thing (and people will vote against you to preserve said liberty)
In related thoughts: I think the folks we should learn from are the pro-choice and gun lobbies. They're not pro-abortion, they're abortion rights advocates; they're not pro-gun, they are defending the right to keep and bear arms. Cast the debate in terms of rights, and then turn out the protesters, and you'll have a lot of success - in liberal and conservative states alike.
And, EFF et al.: it's time to broaden the coalition radically. Send that alarmist direct mail! It works. "Hollywood wants to take away YOUR PC!" Buy mailing lists from right-wing and left-wing groups alike - guns, smokers, abortion, gay rights, you name it. Everyone who sends $ to a group wanting to defend its rights should get an angry, alarmist EFF mailer - that will get the members and the cash necessary for the full-court press we will need to KILL HOLLYWOOD'S BILLS DEAD. Fight fire with fire.
sulli
RTFJ.
III.IIVIVIXIIVIVIIIVVIIIIXVIIIXIIIIIIIIVIIIIVVIII
1.3 So what's the problem?
The problem is that copyright protections have become too strong. For the past 200 years, legislation and court decisions preserved a careful balance between the need to protect the rights of creators and the need to protect the rights of citizens. Sometimes those rights come into conflict, for example when a reviewer wants to quote a passage from a novel or when a TV fan wants to record a show in order to watch it later. In the case of such conflicts, citizens were often given reasonable flexibility to use legally purchased content in a convenient manner.
However, that balance has been dramatically shifted by recent copyright laws. Today, citizens have practically no legal rights to use content that they own. We simply want to restore the fair and reasonable balance that served us for two centuries.
But isn't there a fundamental difference in today's technology and so-called "fair use?" If a reviewer quotes part of a book, only a small portion of that book is duplicated and make freely available. If a home viewer tapes a show on a VCR, the most he can do is run a few copies off for friends. But with digital content and the Internet, a home computer user can share a perfect copy of any content with potentially millions of other people, with minimal time and effort. Doesn't that pose an immediate danger to copyright holders? How do you propose we stem illegal distribution of copyrighted material, other than mandating that copy-thwarting be built into any device that can read the original work?
dinner: it's what's for beer
Software companies lose _billions_ of dollars a year to piracy. Yet none of them support legislation. They protect their profits by actively pursuing copyright violators. And they know a great deal more about technology than the MPAA does.
Jack Valenti and the MPAA are to technology as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone
Why is it that evey time someone suggests passing (or enforcing!) laws that keep corporations from raping the consumer, some bubba has to scream commie?
You miss the point completely. When big business has free reign, consumer choice is taken away. When consumer choice is taken away, that is communism. Oh, but wait, since someone, somewhere is making buck off it, it must be good for the economy, right? WRONG!
A vacuum is a hell of a lot better than some of the stuff that nature replaces it with. - Tennessee Williams
I discussed the idea that DRM (Digital Rights Management) imposes what I call a "technical copyright" on a protected work, that is, a copyright that never expires. This is clearly contrary to what the founding fathers meant when said "limited time" in the Constitution, it circumvents the power of Congress to control the length of copyright protection, and it does nothing to "promote progress of science and the useful arts."
Howard Roark, Architect
I believe in a Man's right to exist for his own sake.
It will be illegal to sell or import a device that doesn't include DRM.
It will be illegal to write software to bypass the built-in DRM.
There may be a market for devices that can be hacked, but it will be a black market. And, as the Randroids are fond of pointing out, the government *can* hold a gun to your head.
--
E_NOSIG
No, it isn't. When the workers, or an entity representing the workers, owns the means of production, that my friend is communism. Nothing more or less than that. It happens that in most of the regimes where this has been attempted, it's the state that has "represented" the workers, and the state has thought it most efficient to effectively abolish choice and competition. But there's no reason why it has to be that way.
If a monopoly is in private hands, and is unaccountable to "the people" except through proactive law passing, then it's not communist. It sucks, it sucks lemons, but it's capitalist. Unfortunately, a factor of capitalism few people understand is that businesses always aim to grow, and sometimes there's nowhere to grow but in marketshare. In a pure capitalist system, monopolies are inevitable, not sudden changes to communism.
Americans might find it easier to understand the world and what is happening to them if they take their blinkers off, and recognise that words like "communism", "liberal", "democracy", etc, are not insults, they actually mean something. And they definitely mean something more than simply "Anything we dislike we bundle under this one word."
Just as any good politician does - unfortunately - you must play to the Senator's emotions - and more importantly, the emotions of his staff. He is a Democrat, but probably a pretty conservative one - coming from Florida. From my experience as a lowly intern for a senator, this is what I suggest:
Find out more about this technical advisor. Has he/she always been 'with' the senator or did he/she come from a corporate background? Use this information to help frame your argument. For example, if the advisor has always worked for the government/senator then he/she is probably inclined to be more of the 'socially conscious' type. Using this as an aide, make the argument that this is not good policy - it is a ploy by the 'Disney' corporate culture to push off onto society the potentially high monetary and political costs of copy-protection. (I personally hate the idea of copy protection, but it is within the rights of the companies to employ this, as long as it is clearly labeled on CDs, etc. They don't want to do this because customers hate it. For this reason, they are seeking protection behind the law.)
If the advisor and senator are somewhat more conservative - coming from a corporate background, make the argument that it is the obligation of the industry to satisfy the will of the market - not the government's obligation to alter the market for the industry. Also mention the chip industry's opposition to the idea - and the increased costs consumers will have to shoulder. It could be argued that innovation will be hindered. Would you purchase a new system if you knew a copy-protection chip were installed in it? I wouldn't.
Finally, Florida - if I remember correctly - is still one of the states fighting M$. In this case, make it a point to bring up the subject of open-source software and how this legislation could seriously harm its development. When writing my Senators and Congressman (California, unfortunately), I made it a point to bring up the fact that my one-man-shop must run open-source software because of the cost associated with M$ products. This legislation could force me to adopt M$ platforms, decreasing my income and making it harder for me to do business.
Hope this helps.
Congress Breaks Democracy, Takes Peoples America.
Novel theory: Modern Man evolved from psychopath
You might ask the following provisions to be
/their/ works with any of the watermarks
/any/ computer operating
added, since they are entirely reasonable, and
hence likely to "poison" the bill. >:K
1. It must be possible for ordinary end-users
who record and produce audiovisual works on
consumer-grade equipment (garage bands,
amateur film-makers and animators, etc.) to
mark
mandated by the security standard, so their
content can be viewed on all compliant media
devices that require such watermarks.
(otherwise, the bill is essentially asking for
"digital prior restraint" by whoever dispenses
the watermarks, which would surely be found
un-Constitutional by the Supreme Court).
2. Similarly, it must be possible for ordinary
end-users to mark the works they create with
any of the copying control settings defined
by the standard, so they can exercise the
full range of control over how their works
are copied and used.
(i.e. it should not be any more difficult or
expensive for ordinary end-users to mark their
works with digital copyright info than it would
be for RIAA or MPAA members. Otherwise, the U.S.
wouldn't be complying with their Berne Treaty
obligations to automatically grant and uphold
copyright without formal action by the author.)
3. Any software or hardware technologies which
are mandated by the standard must be freely
available, without any patent, licensing, or
royalty requirements, to ensure that it is
possible for open-source "freeware" digital
media tools to comply with the standard.
(In particular, since Microsoft Corporation has
basic patents covering
system with embedded digital-rights management,
the U.S. Government must revoke or buy those
patents before mandating all operating systems
software have this function. Otherwise, they
would be simply handing Microsoft exclusive
control of the entire software industry!)
>;k
Some of the "Findings" in Senator Hollings' bill:
(14) When protected digital content is converted to analog for consumers, it is no longer protected and is subject to conversion into unprotected digital form that can in turn be copied or redistribute illegally.
I.E. He doesn't want you to be able to play your CD and record the analog output through the use of stereo jack cables etc.
(15) As solution to this problem is technologically feasible but will require government action, including a mandate to ensure its swift and ubiquitous adoption.
I.E He wants laws that will FORCE hardware makers to cripple ALL electronic components that might be used to convert and/or copy digital signals into unprotected analog signals. This would mean that you would be FORCED to pay for crippled equipment because that is all that would be available.
(16) Unprotected digital content on the Internet is subject to significant piracy, through illegal file sharing, downloading, and redistribution over the Internet.
He is referring to the rampant theft of intellectual property like mp3s etc.
(17) Millions of Americans are currently downloading television programs, movies, and music on the Internet and by using "file-sharing" technology. Much of this activity is illegal, but demonstrates consumers's desire to access digital content.
He is referring to consumers who are exercising their right of fair use but then abusing that legal right by sharing the files with others.
Notice the use of the word "consumers" and not citizens. His interests clearly are for the corporations and not for the average American.
(18) Piracy poses a substantial economic threat to America's content industries.
Ditto with the corporate interest thing.
(19) A solution to this problem is technologically feasible but will require government action, including a mandate to ensure its swift and ubiquitous adoption.
He repeats himself. He really wants to screw with our hardware.
(20) Providing a secure, protected environment for digital content should be accompanied by a preservation of legitimate consumer expectations reading use of digital content in the home.
Yeah, as long as we don't expect to exercise our fair use rights.
(21) Secure technological protections should enable owners to disseminate digital content over the Internet without frustrating consumers' legitimate expectations to use that content in a legal manner.
This bill would be changing the definition of "a legal manner", so your current expectations are irrelevant.
(22) Technologies used to protect digital content should facilitate legitimate home use of digital content.
Again, the "legitimate home use of digital content" will no longer include fair use. You will have to pay for content that is streamed to your home each time you listen or view it.
It goes on and on but I think everyone gets the idea. Pass the Vaseline and bend over.
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
Depends on whose party your Senator's from.
The first rule in making a political argument is to KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE.
If you're writing to a Republican Congressman, the thrust of your argument against the CBDTPA is that this is a Democrat-sponsored bill to favor a niche industry ($35B revenues) and the liberal elite of Hollywood (who donate disproportionately to Democrats when it's campaign time), while destroying the much more important ($600B revenues) technology industry that drives American innovation economic growth.
If you're writing to a Democratic Congressman, you use the other argument: CBDTPA is merely the latest way Big Business (Hollywood, MPAA, RIAA) is trouncing the rights of the Little Guy consumer (they tried to take his VCR, failed, and now are trying to take away his computer), and the independent creative community (no more independent films or indie bands when you can't do your own digital editing or burn your own CDs.)
Incidentally, both of these arguments are true. CBDTPA is a threat to the technology industry and the independent artist alike.
But your Congressman is very likely to have a political bias towards favoring only of these arguments (nothing wrong with that; it's his job to have a political bias on issues! That's why he got elected over the candidate from the other party!), only one of those arguments is likely to make an impression on him strong enough to influence his vote.
I live in Georgia so I wrote to Senators Zell Miller, Max Cleland and my local Rep. Johnny Isakson (all of you should do the same IMHO). I got replies from Cleland and Isakson. Here they are....
_ __
Dear *****:
Thank you for contacting me regarding S.2048, the Consumer Broadband and Digital Television Promotion Act, being introduced by Senators Hollings and Stevens.
I certainly understand your concerns regarding copyright issues. The U. S.
has traditionally been a strong supporter of copyright holders. As you know, the development and expansion of the Internet has created questions in some people's minds as to how to deal with copyright issues of all kinds. I believe that we can find a way to balance appropriately electronic commerce with copyright
protection issues. Currently, the measure has been referred to the Senate Commerce Committee, of which I am a member. Please be assured that I
will keep your concerns in mind when the Senate considers this bill.
Again, I appreciate your taking the time to contact me. It was good to hear from you.
Most respectfully,
Max Cleland
United States Senator
________________________________________
Dear Mr. ******:
Thank you for contacting my office regarding technology mandates. I appreciate your thoughts on this issue.
I do not support legislation of this type for the following reasons:
The Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 (DMCA) gave copyright owners the tools to stop purveyors of "piracy tools" that circumvent copyright protection technology, but it explicitly declined to specify which technologies should be used, clarifying instead that there can be no mandate for manufacturers to respond to particular technologies.
Draft legislation supported by some companies would repudiate the DMCA's carefully struck balance by requiring the Commerce Department to
"certify" specific copy protection technologies and outlawing all interactive digital devices (computers, digital TVs, cell phones, etc.) that do not include the certified technologies. The flaws in the discussion draft of the bill indicate the difficulties in government technology mandates for copyright protection:
* Retards innovation by freezing today's technology in place. By picking specific technologies to mandate in every device, federal mandates virtually guarantee the inclusion of outdated technology in future digital technology products.
* Government picks winners and losers. Even if the entertainment and technology industries agreed on a common approach, the government would
still be picking specific copyright protection products to be included in every computer, cell phone, personal video recorder or other electronic
device.
* Multiple mandates mean extreme performance degradation. Scanning every datastream for numerous certified "digital watermarks" would
significantly slow down computers, even where no protected content is involved. Audio/video capabilities would be unworkable on cell phones, PDAs and other portable devices.
* Government (and lobbyists) as gatekeeper over new technologies. New products that didn't work with the certified copyright protection technologies would be unlawful until the government approved new copy protection. Approval would have to be gained over the lobbying of
companies, NGOs or any others who wanted to stall the new technology.
* Consumer backlash. Unworkable copyright mandates would cause new IT and consumer electronics products to fail in the market and cause consumers to blame technology companies and policymakers.
* Reduced global competitiveness. IT and electronics products produced for the US market with lower performance, higher prices and burdensome restrictions would be noncompetitive in international markets where such mandates did not apply.
* Unintended consequences. Mandates would potentially impact digital products whose uses are unrelated to the entertainment industry, such
as measuring and testing equipment that incidentally fall under the Act, thereby needlessly increasing the cost to the consumer.
Please feel free to visit my website at www.house.gov/isakson for more
information on issues that may be of importance to you, as well as to sign up for my monthly email update. Thank you again for contacting me, and I hope you will not hesitate to call on me in the future if I can be of assistance to you.
Sincerely,
Johnny Isakson
Member of Congress
In short, PCs and computers in general are much, much, much bigger than hollywood. I don't care much for movies streamed to me on my computers if hollywood can't figure out a way to do so with a framework that has worked for everyone else. It doesn't reduce the value of computers for me. As for watching movies I can rent a tape/DVD and watch it on dedicated hardware that already has copy protection. I don't want my computer to be turned into yet another DVD-player/TV combo. I already have that. Btw, computers and the internet weren't put together after years of research for me to turn a $2500 worth of equipment (not including software prices, connection fees etc.) to a 'toaster' like device that replaces a walk to the movie rental store, a VCR and a tv. Movies are already 'streamed' to my home thru cable. What is the value added for me, the consumer to limit the use of the hardware I have paid for? Hollywood has their hardware. Millions are spent on TVs and DVD players by consumers. They have made the rules and I have subscribed to the rules of their game. I have a VCR, a DVD player and several TVs in my home -- all manufactured to the specification of hollywood. Why can't they spend more R&D dollars and create enough value in those existing 'hollywood' hardware? It's obvious that they just want to 'choke the airsupply' of any technology that poses a threat to their stronghold. If hollywood wants to play the computer 'game' -- more specifically, the PC game it can't expect to have the rules changed for them.
Sure computers could be used to pirate. Knives can be used to kill. Hammers can be used to smash heads. Crowbars can be used to break in. Maybe we ought to start selling blunt knives, plastic hammers and well, outright ban for the Crowbar. Therefore, this bill doesn't protect the consumer or add any value whatsoever for the consumer. Sorry i rambled a little but i'm really infuriated at the short sightedness of various elected brianiacs effectively to amputate a technology much much bigger than movies and music for the sake of protecting hollywood (while there's abundence of 'hollywood hardware' that could be enhanced if hollywood was truly concerned about providing consumers more value.)
Example: Let's suppose that you want to videotape your daughter at her wedding dancing with her new husband to their favorite song.
If machines exist that can do this, then machines exist that can record sounds such as the music in the background which is on a CD and copyrighted. If you can record the video and edit it, then you can split the sound from the picture. If you can copy this sound, then you can copy copyrighted content.
Example: Let's suppose you're reading an book on your laptop as your baby crawls around the floor. Your baby then stands up and starts taking his first steps. He walks in front of the laptop with the copyrigted e-book on it. Should you be able to grab your video camera and record him walking around?
If you have an e-book and you can videotape it, then you can either distribute video stills or use OCR to convert it into text. Either way, if you allow people to be able to take pictures of e-books on a computer, then those e-books can be copied. The only way to stop this is to make machines that can't record when they're pointed at a screen displaying copyrighted content.
Example: Let's suppose that you're walking around in Times Square with all of the big video screens all around you. Many of them will be displaying copyrighted content. Should you be able to videotape all of the sights in Times Square even though you're copying copyrighted content?
If so, then you can use a camera to copy copyrighted video.
These examples are of people living in a world of content that's constantly coming out of things they own while those people are trying to make their own stuff. If you allow people to make their own content, the same machines and technologies that they will use for themselves can be used to copy copyrighted materials. There is no way to separate these two things.
Once these things are recorded, they will be stored in slightly different formats than the original, so you won't even be able to tell what's copyrighted and what isn't just by comparing files. The industry will be forced to control and inspect all data that goes through any network.
So, the only way to control copyright with technology is to make it illegal for anyone to create anything in any way including using computers, cameras, and microphones.
I wonder how the copyright industry itself will continue to make their content since they will need to have tools for recording that aren't hobbled by the laws they want to inflict on everyone else. I don't think they realize that if they make it illegal to have a machine that can send copies of DVDs over the Internet, they won't be allowed to have computers to send their DVDs over the Internet. After all, they don't own ALL of the copyrighted movies in the world, so if their servers can send MY content over the Internet without my consent, they'll have to be illegal.
Basically, they need to have total control. They have forever to keep trying to get this total control. They will be happy with baby steps because every time they get baby steps laws passed that control things a bit more, they have moved the line of what's acceptable. Since copying cannot be stopped without total control, they can come back and ask for more measures every time the partial measures fail until they have total control.
And, interestingly enough, they will also clamp down on the ability of anyone else to create their own content to compete with the copyright industries, but I am sure that this loss of creative potential is a regrettable but unforseen consequence of the necessity of protecting their IP.
Except for one thing. Will clamping down on all of the kinds of recording and editing machines that people can use to record their own music and movies advance the arts, or hinder them?
I feel that if you have an opportunity where you can use technology to allow everyone to make and distribute art cheaply, you will advance the arts more than a world where the creation and distribution channels are artificially narrowed to serve a few corporate interests. If everyone has the chance to create and to share then arts will be advanced more than if things are controlled by a few.
Since the only way to control copyright is to shut off the creative paths that would have been available to billions to keep thousands employed, I say these kinds of laws protect copyright at the expense of freedom. Since the only reason copyright exists is to advance the arts, and since a law like this will stifle the arts, a law like this cannot be constitutional.
Not only will a law like this stifle:
Best. Comment. Ever. Enjoy!
Did monopolies exist then? Erm, yes. Indeed, it was the antics of one such monopoly, Standard Oil, that brought about the current anti-monopoly legislation we know and love. Monopolies existed not merely in the regulated field of railway transportation, but in unregulated enterprises from steel, coal, oil and even tobacco.
The most famous monopoly in the US at the moment is in the software industry, where Microsoft rules the roost. Has there been excess governmental involvement in the software industry? Actually, there's been pretty close to no involvement by the US government in the software industry. Microsoft has even used existing copyright law lightly, constitutionally granted and would be just as strong for their purposes if it were the founding fathers "20-40 years" system, eschewing it except where absolutely necessary for standard civil contract law instead.
Other monopolies exist, and exist with US government involvement, but nothing as strong and damaging as Microsoft's. And the US government has intervened in some cases to prevent monopolies in the PC industry too in other areas, such as IBM's control over hardware, and Intel's control over the processor market.
Which is why so much emotional capital is being invested by the pseudo-libertarians to claim that Microsoft is not a monopoly. It disproves the theory that only the state can create 'em, and that's a theory that only exists because certain industries, starting with the railways and moving on through electricity supply and telephone service, were state regulated monopolies. Why were they? Because they had to be.
There's a reason why those anti-monopoly laws came into being. They weren't to annoy libertarians, they weren't to increase the power of big gubmint. They're there because at one point in US history, almost every industry was consolidating into a centrally controlled, unregulated, unaccountable, bloc.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Back in the late 1700s when society moved and changed much slower than it did today, copyrights were granted for 15 years. Today, with lightspeed communication and accelerating rate of change, copyrights are granted for 75 years. Long copyrights are the antithesis of change. Copyrights should last no longer than 5 years.