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Another DMCA Attack Looms
ndege writes "In this Wired article, Rep. Rick Boucher is finally ready to try and dismantle a key part of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Boucher, a Virginia Democrat, said last July that he wanted to amend the DMCA to permit certain 'fair uses' of digital content, such as backing up an audio CD by bypassing copy protection technology. In an interview on Thursday, Boucher said he now has sufficient support from the tech industry, librarians, and Internet activists."
Maybe we can finnaly have someone on our side in fighting this battle, lord knows we need it since we can't very well talk about it ourselves wouldn't want to be prosecuted now would we.
I'd return the CD, but the problem is that I bought it 500 miles away and the receipt's not around (it was bought while heading on a camping trip and we were in a supermarket getting supplies).
A Petition to the European Parliament. After you read all about it, of course, as the site provides.
Ammend the constitution. Make it part of our bill of rights. And for the love of God, REPEAL the DMCA!
Personally I'd rather not get prosecuted for doing stuff that is legal in my country, just because american senators are paid millions by disney.
Actually, to hell with the laws my country wants to copy from the USA too... I've decided to smuggle 300 kb crypto I've got to some free-speech advocates I know in america.
- Kaos games and encryption systems developer
I'm glad that someone such as boucher is taking this up seriously now
However, I still feel that the only way to get the DMCA changed is to get joe public behind the changes... highlight to the non-slashdot reading public why and how their "right" of fair use of something they have bought is being taken away... Do that and the DMCA will have to be changed
(of course... its not as easy as that - but nothing is)
The only thing the DMCA did was make it hard on cryptographers, security analysts, and researchers to do their jobs and report their results. You want unbreakable crypto? (Well, that will likely never happen, but do you want it to be so hard that it isn't worth the effort?) Then honest people have to try to break it and report on it's strengths and weaknesses. If you pass a million laws saying you can't circumvent encryption, someone in another country where our laws don't apply can still do it. People in America who aren't going to obey the laws anyway can still do it. And people who wouldn't steal the music, but just want to break it for the challenge will still do it.
It is illegal to steal cars, but "slim-jims" are legal, why? Because they can help you get your car open if you lock your keys in. Shouldn't it be legal for me to make a backup copy of my CD in case I drop the original in the lake while on my boat? With the DMCA as it stands, if that disk is copy protected, it is ILLEGAL for me to do that.
"Da ist ein Technölüst in mein Unterpanten!"
Finally, there's someone who thinks we should be able to do what we want to do with the music and movies that we buy!
I always assumed that those "CDs" we buy were kind of on indefinite loan from the media companies, so there would be no way that we would be able to decide how to use them! What a glorious future lies ahead of us!
Seriously: I would love to see someone write a '2084' that would show what the world would be like if all this copyright and consumer rights stuff got out of hand, and fell into the hands of the corporations...
-Evan
Boucher believes that people should be allowed to circumvent technological protection for research...
What sort of research? That which shows the actual encryption schemes to be worthless (ala Edward Felton), or the type of research that requires circumvention so that work can be done?
In my case, my research as an academic partly relies on downloading anime from the Net since my topic concerns how anime fan subculture interprets it. This requires some circumventing of "anti-piracy" devices somewhere down the pike. I'm not intending to be thrifty through illegal activities. Rather, there is just no way I as a broke grad student can afford to even rent, let alone buy the anime without going into the hole to do a good research project. Hopefully, Boucher's amendment will cover cases such as mine as well as those the 1992 Fair Use Act intended to cover.
"Anonymous Coward" is for whistleblowers, not unpopular opinions.
As a constituent of Boucher's, I sent an e-mail to him after his CNet interview a couple of months ago thanking him for his support of fair use for digital media. He sent a very nice response detailing how fair use rights for digital media is one of his highest priorities. His fair-use rights included custom compilation CDs and circumventing technological protection measures in order to archive or excerpt material. The last part really covers almost anything we've been worried about.
He also stated that the potential to penalize and prosecute individuals who excercise such rights is an affront to First Amendment protections, a harm to consumers, and inhibits the creation and public use of intellectual property!
To say I'm glad to be represented by him is an understatement.
Jason
"FORMAT C:" - Kills bugs dead!
The best thing you could do for the DMCA, and copyright law in general, is to go down the hall and beat the crap out of Senator Fritz Hollings!
What follows is the thank you letter that I received from Congressman Boucher for writing him about this subject.
Congress of the United States
House of Representatives
Rick Boucher
9th District, Virginia
NINTHNET@mail.house.gov
HTTP://www.house.gov/boucher/
May 3, 2002
Thank you for your kind expression of support for my efforts to prevent the erosion of fundamental fair use rights in the digital era.
Please be assured that reaffirming the rights of consumers to exercise legitimate fair use rights is among my highest priorities. From such routine practices as making custom compilation CDs of lawfully-acquired songs for personal use to more advanced actions such as circumventing technological protection measures in order to archive or excerpt material for research and educational purposes, the American public traditionally has enjoyed the ability to make convenience and incidental copies of copyrighted works without obtaining the prior consent of the copyright owner. The potential to penalize or prosecute individuals who exercise such rights, or who create or publish software and devices which facilitate the exercise of individual fair use rights, affronts First Amendment protections, harms consumers, and ultimately inhibits the creation and public use of intellectual property.
As Co-Chairman of the Congressional Internet Caucus, my work in Congress focuses on the intersection of the Internet and other technologies with our nation's intellectual property laws. I intend to introduce various legislative measures which will protect fair use rights, and your expression of support for these efforts with your Congressional representatives will be most welcome.
I appreciate your taking the time to share your views with me. With kind regards and best wishes, I remain
Sincerely,
Rick Boucher
Member of Congress
42 - So long and thanks for all the fish.
The inherent issue here is not actually copyright law, but the failure of the political system.
Here we have an issue that is disliked by everyone that knows about it, and fundamentally runs against several precepts of the constitution (and the original idea behind copyright law).
Yet it is law. Why? Because it allows media companies to increase their profits. Yet even that is debatable. A better description of the DMCA is that it allows media companies to think that they are increasing their profits.
And because of the money involved, these companies have a bunch of cash to blow on lobbyists. Media companies are very very large, and, as a result, have an enormous financial intrest in Washington.
So only the little guys are left. Librarians, Internet activists, and some tech companies (some. Microsoft seems to back the DMCA. Most try to be DRM neutral.). The problem is that the little guys don't have enough cash to buy the best politicians. Yes, buy politicians. So we have to find semi-honest politicians who agree with the cause. Which is near-hopeless.
Of course, the ban on soft money should help, but the underlying problem is the same. Washington is dominated by corporate interests. The only real fix is to make digital rights management and the abhorration that is the DMCA a public issue. Only then will people look at a politicians record vis a vis copy protection come november. And only then will justice finally be done.
All that this will do is stop a few of those who lack computer literacy the ability to copy their cd's to their hard drive. It is obvious that any sort of protection will be overiden by the technological elite from either America or somewhere else in the world. With the growing use and increased user friendliness of computers anyone who is smart enough to rip a cd will be able to find the crack online.
"such as reading an encrypted e-book on another computer" - or in a OS not that don't have a sanctioned reader...
other fair use: backup. I still remember when software used to come in floppy disks and CD-ROM was just a rich boy gadget. most of the software came with a cluse in the EULA stating that it was ok to make copies of the floppies and install the software from the copies, in order to protect the original disks from being damaged. ahhh the god ol times...
What ? Me, worry ?
I remeber a couple years ago there was a chain-type email going around warning people that congress was going to start charging $ to send email or something like that. It was pretty inflamatory, but looked somewhat legitimate by naming people and bill numbers (even though they were fake if I remember). I believe congress got tons of calls and mail about this issue.
So someone needs to write up an inflamatory email about not being able to listen to your CDs anymore, due to Senator Smith and his bill S.9876. Then we just start forwarding it to everybody, and let them get on their congresscritters.
Has anyone ever had an audio/data CD stop working on them? I haven't... and certainly have never felt the need to back them up.
So is this 'right to back up' as in 'right to copy and give to all my friends'? Or is it 'right to back up' as in, 'we will not be controlled to that extent'?
I can agree with the second... the DMCA goes too far... but the first, well... get over it, you can't expect to get everything for free...
And remember, the important things in life are free.
In the US of A, it is perfectly legal for any American to purchase any politician. You don't need to be from Virgina to contribute to Mr. Boucher's reelection efforts. I'm sure certain nefarious organizations will fund his opponents. Do your part and keep this guy from getting crushed for standing up to legalized racketeering.
Now you can see why GWB and his ilk are lobbying to make human cloning illegal. If it were to be legal, Rep. Boucher would be the first one I'd want cloned... about 435 times (one per seat in the U.S. House Of Representatives).
Seriously, this guy has more of a clue than half my coworkers. And I'm a software engineer.
Karma: Excellent Birds (mostly as a result of listening to Laurie Anderson)
Hopefully this will get enough press that we will all know just when Rep. Boucher will be moving against the DMCA, so that the rest of the Senate hears the voice of support for Rep. Boucher at once. All the webmasters in the techie world should remember to keep an eye one this one and post regular updates, our best hope here is to stay united.
What is fair use though? How far does fair use extend and where do it limits end? That seems to one part of the problem, because there is no rule of thumb of what constitutes fair use. In seems to be in the same boat as justice, in that it's definitely a good thing to have but its a loose principle so there is no concrete definition to determine what is just and what isn't.
Looking on the Internet there are plenty of documents (example 1, example 2) that define fair use in academia, but are they such definitions in regards to personal use?
aus.music.scrapbook
Right before the link it says "... said last July that he wanted to amend". That should have put it in context right there. Of course that only works for people who can read text.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
Also, I am not saying this bill is not justified, or even that it is not needed. It is certainly a step in the right direction. However, I think the DMCA should be completely repealed and all the Congressmen who voted for it should be smacked with a wet trout.
"Da ist ein Technölüst in mein Unterpanten!"
The relevance of DMCA-invoking complaints is still under serious review under Canadian law. ISPs in Canada are not obliged to comply with DMCA take-down notices as they would be in the USA. For example, if a take-down notice is received regarding a website hosting material which violates copyright of a US company, the Canadian hosting company may have more to worry about in terms of their customer's rights than they would regarding the DMCA complaint.
This uncertain state of affairs in Canada is not for lack of effort on the part of the Department of Justice in Ottawa. They are seeking several bits of legislation which parallel what is happening in Australia. The Canadian DoJ is using the Aussies as a role model, and have been VERY VERY resistant to challenges to Bills (for example: Bill C-15A) which try to steer Canadian law towards the examples set by the European Union (very hands-off) and the USA (moderate compared to Australia and the EU). The DoJ clearly wants laws which will place responsibility on the shoulders of the ISPs. Even so, Canadian responsibility to comply with the DMCA is not clear at all, and there is no legal requirement (at present) to comply with a DMCA take-down notice for content hosted in Canada.
perl -e 'print $i=pack(c5, (41*2), sqrt(7056), (unpack(c,H)-2), oct(115), 10)'
That'd be a huge mistake. Laws last longer than technologies do. There will come a time when "CD" is extremely primitive and inefficient. Meanwhile, the rest of the law remains in place?
It would be amazing to see "Fair Use" in the law books instead of being merely a part of court precedence though.
It's time to flood congress with intelligent opinions. I think this political activism thing is actually working for us. I think even politicians WANT to do the right thing if only they people they represent show they care and are watching.
Now that we have the librarians on our side we are unstoppable!
But seriously, librarians are well educated and man do they know how to research. They are valuable allies for any cause...
The DMCA is NOT really a copyright law. You are right, digital content is protected in the same way as everything else by regular copyright law.
What the DMCA does is to ban the distribution of devices that circumvent copy protection mechanisms. Thus, for example: Copyright law says it's illegal to use a decrypter to copy a DVD. The DMCA says it's illegal to get the decrypter in the first place (unless you invented it yourself).
Unfortunately, the killer is that it (apparantly) bars devices that circumvent copy protection mechanims, NO MATTER WHAT ELSE THOSE DEVICES DO, and NO MATTER WHAT ELSE THE COPY PROTECTION MECHANISMS DO.
Fair use is the classic example. Preventing fair use isn't copyright protection, because copyright cannot legally prevent fair use. Technically it would be completely legal for you to decrypt a DVD for fair use reasons, and neither copyright nor the DMCA stops you directly. But the DMCA will stop you getting the decryptor you need to do it. So unless you want to engineer one yourself, you effectively lose your fair use ability. The holders have defended this under the grounds that 'they are under no obligation to make fair use easy'.
The real question is how Boucher is going to get fair use into the DMCA without repealing the whole thing. An extra law, which said that they WERE obliged to make fair use easy, would help..
When Rep Boucher's bill gets close to Congress, I'll actually send a letter, on paper, to my U.S. House representative indicating that this little grass root voter wholeheartedly supports Boucher's legislation and cares very much about this issue.
I suggest you do the same. People that care enough to write a coherent letter get counted. However, it doesn't work quite like Slashdot, though. You won't get modded up to +5 Funny for sprinkling baby powder on the letter.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
Young lawyers, there's no need to be down
I said, young lawyers, pick yourself off the ground
I said, young lawyers, cause your in a new town
There's no need to be unhappy
Young lawyers, there law where you can go
I said, young lawyers, when you're short on your dough
You can use that law, and I'm sure you'll find
Many ways to sue a good time.
Its fun to sue with the D.M.C.A
Its fun to sue with the Dee-Em-See-A
It has lots of legal cahces for lawyers to enjoy
You can hang out with all the MPAA-boys
Its fun to sue with the D.M.C.A
Its fun to sue with the Dee-Em-See-A
You can sue them till they're sucked clean
You can, off their money, have a good meal
You can sue them well whenever you feel
Young lawyers, are you listening to me
I said young lawyers, what do you want to be
I said young lawyers, you can sue in your dreams
but you've got to know this one thing
No lawyers, does it all by himself
I said young lawyers, put your put your pride on the shelf
And just go there, to the D.M.C.A
I'm sure the MPAA lawyers can help you today
Its fun to sue with the D.M.C.A
Its fun to sue with the Dee-Em-See-A
It has everything for young lawyers to enjoy
Lots of nice little legal toys
Its fun to sue with the D.M.C.A
Its fun to sue with the Dee-Em-See-A
.
.
.
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
I live in the district next to his, with Disney payee Goodlatte. He won't be getting my vote again. However, my mom lives in Boucher's district and I've had the opportunity to sit down with him and discuss the DMCA and Music licensing issues with him, as well as his legislative assitant, Johanna Mikes. He is intellegent, insightful, beleives strongly in copyright, but also beleives in a balance as copyright was intended to be. One of the concerns he has is about copy-protected cds, when they do go into public domain, it would still be illegal under the DMCA to break the encrption to make it publicly available.
Picture of Johanna Mikes, Rick Boucher's legislative assistant with Fred Von Lohman of the EFF,at the Future of Music Coalition Pho Dinner in Jan. 2002.
Picture of Rick Boucher and me taken Jun 2001.
> How are they supposed to allow copies for
> legitimate uses but not for piracy? Today's DRM
> technology cannot make this distinction.
> Telling them to remove all protection is
> equivalent to saying "ignore me, please,
> because I don't have constructive input."
No, absolutely not. The companies need to be told that if THEY want the benefits of the technology, THEY have to develop it first. Breaking people's rights to get one without the other is wrong.
Suppose I want to be able to defend my house against burglars. I have the right to do that and to use reasonable force in doing so. I would like to build a machine that would club burglars on the head. By your logic, it is ok for me to set up a machine which attacks EVERYONE who comes within range of my house. After all, I have the right to protection, and I cannot help the fact that innocents get attacked because the technology to distinguish them from burglars doesn't exist.
Furthermore, unless legislation that forces companies to adopt technologies that will permit fair use is created, then a) no money will go into developing it, and b) even if it is developed nobody will use it. Why should they? They would far prefer that there was no fair use.
I don't remember the name of the author, but this was the story. It was posted to either /. or k5 as I recall.
Reposted WITHOUT consent of the author; if anyone reading this is or knows the author, please let me know.
****
A Letter From 2020
Dear Me,
I'm not sure if reading this letter is illegal. I thought it only fair to warn you; it might be better to just destroy it.
The actual writing has been a bit of a chore. Word.NET isn't what it used to be. Even Microsoft.NET couldn't afford to patent everything, so whilst I can do Find, there's no Replace anymore. One good thing about having only one legal operating system is that it's very stable. I'm glad they never update Windows.NET; anyone can live with three or four crashes a day and the hourly rent is less than I pay for my apartment.
I try to remember what it was like when I was a kid but it's really difficult; the world has changed so much since then. I found a paper book the other day that described the rise and fall of something called the "Internet". It started out with people putting up links on computers so that they could follow the link and read things on other computers for free. After it got to be popular, companies started to create machines with lots of links that you could search to find things of interest. But someone put up a link to something illegal and got sued and had their machine shut down. This happened a few times and people started to take the links off their machines. The search engine companies were the first to go and without them, you couldn't find anything. Eventually no one put up links anymore because the legal risk was too great. The important thing is that it reduced terrorism. I'm not sure how it could have worked anyway. Anything I write on my computer or any music I create gets stored by Word.NET and Music.NET in encrypted formats to protect my privacy. No one but me, Microsoft.NET and the National Corporation can read or hear my stuff even if they could link to it.
I shouldn't admit it, but sometimes I go to certain places and speak to the subversives. I know its wrong but their warped views on things have some kind of morbid fascination. For example, I spoke to someone who claimed to be a historian the other day. She had courage all right, admitting to an illegal activity like that. I hadn't understood why it was illegal until she explained. History, she told me, gives you context. You can compare today with some time in the past; ask questions like, "are people better off", "look at the different forms of doing business", "compare corporate records or the rights of citizens" (I think she meant employees).
But what interested her was that future generations will know nothing about us; all our records and art are stored digitally, most of it will simply disappear when no one rents it anymore -- remember the sadness when the last digital copy of Sgt. Pepper was accidentally erased? And the data that does survive will all be encrypted and in proprietary formats anyway -- even if there were historians they'd have no right to reverse engineer the formats. I can vaguely remember that people used to have physical copies of music and films, although I'm not sure how that was possible, or what the point was when we can rent whatever we like from the air interface. I don't think it matters that those who come after us can't read our writings or hear our music or see our films; these things are temporal anyway, if no one rents them then they can't be worth keeping.
The saddest subversive I met claimed to be a programmer. He said that he was writing a program using Basic.NET. He must have been insane. Even if his program worked he wouldn't be allowed to run it. How could one person possibly check every possible patent infringement in a program they wrote? And even if he hadn't infringed he couldn't sell it without buying a compatibility license from Microsoft.NET and who could possibly afford that? He had said something about gippling the software, which apparently means giving it away, but mad as he was, even he knew that under WUCITA that would be illegal.
These subversives really don't seem to understand that a few restrictions are necessary for the sake of innovation. And progress has been made. We don't have spam since most people can't afford an email license due to the expensive patent royalties. Our computer systems all have the same operating system, user interface and applications so everyone knows how to use them, and although they crash and don't work very well, we all know the limitations and can live with them. We have no piracy of intellectual property since we rent it as we want it and have no means of storing it.
It was the USA that showed the world the way of course. First the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, then more and more software patents. The Japanese followed suit. The Europeans were a problem, which is only to be expected, with their anti-business un-Christian socialist tendencies. Fortunately, common sense prevailed, helped along by the good old dollar I've no doubt and they accepted both software patents and a redefinition of copyright to suit global corporations. Once the USA, Japan and Europe had uniform intellectual property laws to protect our corporations and our way of life, everyone else had to play ball or they couldn't trade. The result has been that every algorithm and computer program and every piece of music and film (after all music and film can be put into digital form and are therefore a form of software) have been patented. No more variations on Beethoven (unless you've got the patentees approval). No more amateur participation in music or film which might risk lowering standards. No more challenge to established business and business practices.
I'm crazy to have written I know. But I am so happy in the world and I remember how unhappy I used to be. I wanted to somehow pass back to you the knowledge that its all going to be okay, that the world really is getting better.
Sincerely,
Mark.
****
end repost.
-Kasreyn
Kasreyn: Cheerfully playing the part of Devil's Advocate to hairtrigger
> Only to promote progress. Not for money.
Money is needed for progress, both to buy the stuff you need for progress AND to encourage people to make progress instead of doing something else that makes money.
Also their definition of progress is wide open. After all, CDs and DVDs and similar are entertainment products, so it is not clear how they constitute or promote progress; in fact it could be argued that they impede it (because when someone is watching a film they're not progressing something else). However, a similar argument did get tried in court (somebody was charged with copying some porn, and they appealed under the grounds that porn should have no copyright protection because, being frowned on by society, it didn't constitute progress) and was rejected by the judge.
Remember that the big problem with the DMCA is the anti-circumvention provisions. The rest of it is relatively uncontroversial and in many respects welcome.
One of the actions of the DMCA was to make proxying legal for the first time. Previously it was legally the same as republishing. Now it's understood that you have to cache copies and resend them as part of the operation of the web. Repealing the DMCA would make proxying illegal again.
Another is that the DMCA made legal the temporary installation of copyrighted software for the purpose of maintenance. So thanks to the DMCA, if you have a legal copy of Norton Utilities, you're allowed to use it on someone else's machine to fix it so long as you delete the copy when you're done.
All pretty good stuff, apart from chapter 12.
sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f(q{sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f});
My response to you point is that you have yet to show that any solution that is 'logical and realistic' by your definition would NOT be ignored.
Suppose we did work out a way of doing DRM that allows fair use. Why should anyone take any notice? As long as the law allows them to use a version that blocks fair use - and supports them in doing so - they have no reason to care about our technology.
Can you suggest anything that would NOT be ignored unless backed up by legal change to give it teeth?