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Alan Cox Attacks the European DMCA
forged writes "The Register already reported Alan Cox's involvement against the proposed European Union Copyright Directive before. Today, Alan Cox has issued a wake up call to the Linux community amid concerns that the pending EUCD could stymie open source development.
"The directive, which was approved last year, extends European copyright legislation so that it is even more restrictive than America's controversial Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA)."" If you haven't joined the EFF (or the equivalent in your country) , now might be a good time.
At least OURS isn't as BAD as YOURS!
If you haven't joined the EFF (or the equivalent in your country), now might be a good time.
It's definitely a good idea to join the EFF, and to be active against this kind of thing. But an even more effective action is to let mainstream folks know about this problem. The DMCA and whatnot is as grave a concern for clueless newbies as it is for hardcore geeks.
The best way to make your voice heard on this matter is to find a way to get the general population knowledgeable about what's going on. As long as this is seen as mainly an activism issue for nerds, we're in trouble.
I'm generally "Interesting," "Insightful," and even "Funny" here. What the hell happens to me at parties?
The pros won't use open formats - they want to get paid and are essentially work for hire anyway. So they'll use whatever they are told to or whatever the majority of the hardware players will play back (most likely WMP in 2-3 years).
Joe Six Pack may use open formats, but do you want to see his home movie with his family drinking and doing donuts in his mud filled yard next to his trailer?
Neither do I.
This democracy thing isn't working... If people were intelligent and understood computers they would not support this... but because people purchase all this crap from corporatations, it is assumed that this is what they (the majority)want, so corporations lobby for it, but little does the comsumer realize that the stuff they are buying is supporting the demise of the freedom that has brought everything they use and buy.
From the article:
If it goes through unmodified, the EUCD would make it a criminal offence to break or attempt to break the copy protection or Digital Rights Management systems on digital content such as music, software or eBooks. As it stands, the EUCD may lead to a rerun of Dmitri Sklyarov's prosecution, prevent teachers copying materials for their students or other legitimate uses of copyright material, opponents believe.
...
Since it is illegal to circumvent copyright protection, developers would be forced to sign licenses with the creators of a format in order to develop playback tools. This means that a creator could control the market, Cox warned, creating antitrust concerns.
It never ceases to amaze me how companies who claim to be technology companies, or corporations who adopt technological representations of their media cry when all of a sudden they have to deal with a new set of rules that comes with the new medium. If you're unprepared to deal with the ramifications of the technology, then don't invent/publish/distribute using it. Period. End of story.
If you're concerned about copy protection, invent something that works. If you don't have the resources to do that, then investigate new paradigms of reimbursement. The fact that corporations are lobbying for regulation this strict is a clear admission of failure on their part to be smart enough to add value to a huge demand already presented by end consumers.
Thank God for the almighty dollar!
In the end, I hope OpenSource technologies and licenses will be continue to be developed, published and used by individuals. If it is prohibitive to use a particular proprietary file format, then we as consumers should demand that it shouldn't be used, and alternatives be made available instead.
moto411.com
That said, would not overly restrictive legislation like this provide strong incentive for consumers to adopt freely available formats that are not encumbered?
No. The goal here is to attack freely available formats and formats that don't restrict user access. Do you think the RIAA would like to ban mp3? This is just one step closer. With this kind of legislation, before long, there will be no free formats, as they are tools only a "pirate" would have reason to use over the proprietary tools.
I can see it now. RIAA whore: "With the RIAA's secure file format, the only reason you could want to use a format like mp3 is to steal. Banning mp3 is just common sense."
There is no positive side of laws such as this.
-- Ken Kinder ken@_nospam_kenkinder.com http://kenkinder.com/
If this were true most political organizations would offer a free membership but there are probably two reasons why they don't:
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Money Talks..
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Less people would pay because they could get the same "inner reward" by joining for free.
If a political foundation had to choose between a million free members, or a million dollars, they would probably choose the latter because the fact is money will bring you more influence. The free membership option would cannibalize their lower value donations which the EFF depends on. For example, the NRA counts on having gun-toting hicks send in their $25/year do you think the hicks would still pay if they could say they are an NRA member and not pay a dime?There is nobody, I mean NOBODY here who can't spare $25 bucks for the EFF. I'm sick of hearing sob stories on here about poor students who can't spare a dime yet they probably spend 20 hours a week trolling slashdot. Go work at McDonald's for a day, quit, and then send your paycheck to the EFF.
I admit it--I was being hopelessly optimistic. It's a flaw of mine. :-)
Most people can. Most people are actually quite smart, if you refuse to let them get away with being dumb. Unfortunately, we live in a society (world-wide as far as I can tell) that thrives on people being stupid, and acting stupid.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
You were free to post the changelog yourself as an American citizen. But you would risk prosecution under the DMCA. So, where's your mirror?
Become a FSF associate member before the low #s are used
Really most people who are _very_ one way or the other are simple minded. I've not met an intelligent person who was not left wing one one issue yet right wing on another. Both wings support some _really_ stupid idealogy if you look at all of their stances. To cite a point, if the left is so free thinking and open minded, did the California left recently try and ban all .50 caliber rifles? These had never been used in a crime, yet they were saying that this would help the public good. Doesn't sound like a free thinking group to me ;-)
Please stop insulting our intellegence by Americanising the issues that appear on Slashdot.
If I can understand what the European Union Copyright Directive is about, I'm sure that anyone can. It's not like the term is vague and incomprehensible.
When compared to the DCMA, the issues are similar, but the stakeholders and the implications to them are different.
I guess that it is only a matter of time before China's long standing censorship practices are simply referred to as the "Chinese DCMA".
"The big question in our lives is how to be at the same time a hedonist and in a hurry" - Alain Ducasse (?)
What the hell is the point of trying to classify policies as left or right ?
There are a million issues, even if they were all simple binary choices, there are 2^N different opinions a person could have. Sure, there are certain correlations between issues. If you believe in death penalty, you are more likely to believe in corporal punishment, but are not certain to.
Since you only get to choose between two options at election time, it suits people to pretend that everything is either "left" or "right". Then they get confused about whether a policy is left or right. It's an extraordinary mass psychosis.
http://rareformnewmedia.com/