Three Years Under the DMCA

willybur writes "The Electronic Frontier Foundation just released a report (pdf) today detailing the last three years under the DMCA. It describes how the DMCA has been used to unfairly attempt to prosecute all of the various parties over the years, and gives yet another argument of why the DMCA needs to be struck down. It's worth a read." Slashdot has covered most of the incidents listed, but this is nice summary to hand someone who hasn't been following these issues.

Comments

No No No, Wrong Wrong Wrong!

[Nipok Nek]

From the text...

"In the Universal v. Reimerdes case, discussed above, the court held that section 1201 bans DeCSS software. This software decrypts DVD movies, making it possible to copy them to a PC." (Italics Mine)

You've always been able to copy them. It's PLAYING them that's been the problem. If even the EFF can be confused on this point, what chance do we have to get Joe American to understand?

Nipok Nek

PDF

[BCoates]

Ugh, they use PDF for it, too. This is too new for google--somebody got a HTML mirror? I'm not going to install Acrobat to read about how Adobe is abusing US laws to punish people who find holes in their lousy 'secure' formats

--
Benjamin Coates

p.s. to lawyers: this post is opinion and not fact.

Re:Not in the states.

[iCEBaLM]

Pretty much. Can you name a country with an economy like ours? I bet you can't. That's because we don't allow our government to interfere with the markets.

Except for the Lumber, Steel markets among others...

-- iCEBaLM

Re:Three years, and still no Supreme Court decisio

[ackthpt]

Techies do care, however, the media companies (particularly those who claim to have been so hurt under copying) spend scads of money to keep people down. I wonder how long before we see law firms listed on the NYSE, as they've done a booming business under this tyranny. And, yes, the common man on the street doesn't know and doesn't care about it until the police knock on the door because the kids are running a file sharing service or have written some really clever decrypting software and have it on their website.

To some degree the common man is more worried about employment, terrorism, war in the Middle East. When the press (which is largely owned by companies just happy as hell with the DMCA) tells the common man it's a bad thing, then he'll care. Don't see that happening, do you?

Re:Not in the states.

[Kierthos]

Oh right. And with only two major parties for the last several decades, we've had such remarkable breakthroughs in legislative wisdom. The IRS may not take 70% of my income, but other parts of the guvmint decide what products I can and can't buy, make laws concerning software that I _thought_ I legitimately owned (but apparently I'm just licensing it), etc.

Frankly, I would welcome a few more major parties in the U.S. if it would lead to less actual laws passing, as each one seems to take away a little more of my freedom.

Kierthos

Re:hi

[CmdrStkFjta]

Nope, I look at it like who ever wrote the document didn't take any previous standard (ex. HTML) in to consideration for viewability. PDF files are a way to transfer information for hard copy (paper). This is the internet, you pompous Windows fanatic!

Re:NOT a good document for introducing the DMCA

[datawar]

Why do such a big number of people on /. think that 'Joe Public' needs every issue super-watered down and spoon fed to them? It's very important to a democracy to have an educated public. Granted, the average person should not be able to wade through hardcore legalese or patch his own kernel, but a basic knowledge of law is ESSENTIAL for any citizen. Plus, the above poster is proposing that someone make a paper that

make Joe Public think "Omighod, that could happen to me!!" THAT would be much more informative and convincing to the average person who doesn't follow the legal incidents and issues on a daily basis.

So not only are we spoon-feeding people now, but we're making decisions FOR THEM of how pieces of legislation affect them too.

What we need is a better educated (e.i. able to understand the basic principles of law and able to formulate their own opinions) public, and until we get that the DCMA will stand. So instead of CNNing political issues, why don't we go and teach someone a little about copyright law so that they are better equipped to fight the battle, even after the DMCA.

Not Unintended

[Veteran]

When a geek reads the PDF it makes sense to us - from our innocent emotionally herbivorous geek point of view - to say that these consequences were unintended bugs, and that the DMCA obviously needs to be fixed to remedy these accidental side effects.

However, that would be a misreading or our opponents actions and motivations.

• The law was not passed accidentally; it was a deliberate and intentional action.
  
  
• The effects of the law are not unintended; it was specifically designed by the industry groups who asked for its existence to curtail exactly the fair use activities - and stifle exactly the scientific research and free speech activities which it has done. An example of an unintended consequence would be if the DMCA wound up some how curtailing the use of electric cow milking machines; the cases sited in the paper were all directly on target and intentional
  
  
• The law was not passed as an oversight. For example: it was not tacked on to an appropriations bill where the majority of the legislators were unaware of its existence. The law was passed by both houses of congress after due processing by those houses and at the recommendation of committees charged with studying its consequences. It was signed into law by the President of the United States who acted upon the recommendation of his staff.
  
  
• The law is not the act of stupidity; there is no indication that any of the people involved in the passage of this law are mentally deficient; most of them are lawyers and possess a law degree - which is recognized as the equivalent in educational achievement of a Ph.D.. Nor is there any evidence that the people involved with the passage of this law had a temporary lapse of their mental faculties; there is no indication - such as misspelled words etc. that this law was written by people under the influence of intoxication.
  
  
• The law is malicious; it makes a federal felony out of actions which have always been held as innocent, legal and which the courts have always upheld as fair.
  

The DMCA is a deliberate, intentional, malicious, act by our government on the behalf of an industry group which seeks to improperly control the actions of the public at large and to unjustly profit at the expense of that public. The act does not need fixing it needs to be repealed - and an investigation into possible bribery of the public officials who foisted it upon us needs to be launched. This is the only way in which pernicious laws of this type can be prevented in the future.

The rule "Never attribute to malice that which may be explained by stupidity" does not apply here; the DMCA is not an act of stupidity but one of deliberate malice. Everyone in the world needs to learn the skill of being able to spot the difference between a malicious action and a stupid one .

Re:Jurisdiction of the DCMA laws?

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

Fortunately, the DMCA means Jack S outside of the US.

Unfortunately, it looks as though other major players -- the EU, for example -- are lining up to pass similarly ill-thought-out and draconian legislation just as soon as they can.

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

oh the irony.

[Restil]

I'm sure that everyone notices the subtle irony of releasing this report using a proprietary format from a company that has abused the DMCA.

*sigh*

-Restil

Are You Sure?

[Rayonic]

Great point, definitely deserving of a (+5 Insightful). But, are you sure that all of the DMCA's consequences are intentional? We've been under the general impression that those responsible for it's passage (RIAA, MPAA, etc) have not a whit of technical knowledge, despite all of their PH.Ds and MBAs. I've sure all of us have met supposedly well-educated individuals without even a basic grasp of any technical issues. Remember when the MPAA tried to outlaw the VCR, and then it became one of their biggest moneymakers? That wasn't that long ago, and those dumb fsckheads are still the ones in charge.

Of course, whatever the reasoning, I'm sure they're peeing their pants with joy about the full implications of the new law they bought.

Re:Are You Sure?

[Cryogenes]

Remember when the MPAA tried to outlaw the VCR, and then it became one of their biggest moneymakers? That wasn't that long ago, and those dumb fsckheads are still the ones in charge.

Yes, the MPAA makes good money from VHS videos. But Valenti thinks they could have made more, if VHS had been read-only, like DVD. What makes you think he is wrong, let alone dumb?

Do you believe in death after life?

The DMCA is one of the biggest land grabs....

[Newer Guy]

The DMCA is one of the biggest land grabs ever given to special interests by Congress. The thought that Congress was able to so twist our processes allowing them to take away free speech rights guarenteed by the Bill of Rights truly sickens me. And the proscecutors and courts have proven to be no better! They've swooped in like vultures over a carcass (the carcass is people's rights by the way), making a mockery of the Constitution and Bill of Rights. The DMCA is simply an awful law...and the 'man' knows it. Why do you think that he quickly drops cases AFTER using it to do harm? Because he knows that this law would be struck down in court if it was ever challenged....easier to bust and run after ruining another person and/or company. Personally, I think that it's well about time that Congress was able to be punished for making obvious bad laws for their cronies in business with deep pockets. Our forefathers must be truly turning over in their graves at the blockheads occupying Congress today....

6 years under the DMCA.... Predictions

[ralphus]

you will no longer be able to find an ad-blocking proxy server to use, they will be illegal black box circumention devices designed to alter the display of a copyrighted work.

you will not be able to legally alter the way an application you own interacts with things other than the way the manufacturer intended. Wanna change the user-agent your browser reports??? Want to block the ability of a program you own from phoning home and tracking you? Even Quake 3 does this if you don't block it.

Reverse engineering will also include using a sniffer to look at the network traffic that is leaving your machine and deciding what you do and do not want to allow to go out to the internet.

blocking cookies will be illegal.

anonymous proxies, remailers, news posters or any technology that grants the user relative or absolute anonynmity will be illegal, they allow the widespread and fast and unaccountable distribution of illegal information such as what the latest bug in a copyrighted work is that the manufacturer doesn't want you to know about (circumventing the DMCA).

freenet will be illegal.

Encryption will be for criminals.

Freedom and copyright/IP are mutually exclusive concepts as pure ideals. There is a sliding scale with freedom on one side and copyright/Intellectual Property on the other. Pragmatically we'd be foolish to think of having absolute freedom, the scale is sliding strongly towards complete copyright/IP & enforcement and there is tremendous power pushing it in that direction. Who's to stop them? A few geeks who can see what's going on. Unfortunately I think the geeks get caught up in these issues applying only to the Internet, or only to technology issues. These same issues apply to nearly everything with the world today and all tie together.

Think about it, figure it out and educate as many as you can and get as polically active as you can be.

Technology has started a new revolution just as the printing press did when invented. Centralized control of information was shattered then. Now it's being shattered again. There is going to be quite a struggle and the powerstructures are facing the biggest threats ever. They are counting on ignorance of the masses to win. I'm afraid they will and that terrible things will result.

DO SOMETHING.

Re:6 years under the DMCA.... Predictions

[MoneyT]

Also:

Reading a magazine, news paper etc etc with out also reading advertisements will be ilegal.

Reading bed time stories to your children will be an offense punishable by a minimum of 20 years in jail.

Discussing the DMCA on web boards such as slashdot will constitute as high treason.

Listening to a CD or Tape while driving from one state to another will constitue interstate commerce and will be ilegal.

Borrowing tapes/CDs/DVDs/Books etc etc etc from friends/libraries/Block Buster etc etc etc will be punishable by death.