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IEEE Drops DMCA Reference in Authors Copyright Form
aurelian writes "a follow-up on this story in April: the IEEE has announced that they have re-revised their copyright form and dropped the requirement that authors verify their work does not violate the DMCA. Seems to be as a result of feedback from their authors/members. Of course authors still have to comply with the act - they just don't have to see it mentioned in the new form."
Of course they can't go out and say "we think it's alright to break the law" so the best they can do is imply it.
To me, this says that the IEEE has brains.
good riddance to the stated requirement. IEEE has around 400,000 members in 150+ countries. Since they are one of the largest publishers of electrical engineering/computer science literature, they were effectively extending the DMCA's censorship beyond our borders to places like Autralia and Europe, where software can't even be patented.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
Indeed, in this case, changing the paperwork is a disservice to the people who sign it. It served as a "Beware of the Leopard," type sign. You know, as in "there is a horrible ravenous beast out there that may decide to eat you if you draw its attention." Now, of course, the ravening beast is still out there, and will still eat you if you draw its attention.
It would be sort of as if a park had formerly had a sign near a lake saying, "Beware Alligators," and then one day took it down.
When asked, the park director says, "Oh, well, we were getting fewer people coming to the park, it seems that people didn't want to swim in the lake when they knew they might be eaten by and alligator."
"Oh, so you've gotten rid of the alligators, then."
"Well, no, but now people aren't afraid to swim in the lake any more."
All the creatures will die, And all the things will be broken. That's the law of samurai. (Jubai, 1605)
What is an international organisation like the IEEE doing making reference to country-specific law like this anyway ???
The rest of thw world don't care about the DMCA (well, not in terms of its enforcability, anyway)
President Eisenhower asked me to say "I pledge allegience to the Flag...."
The Grand Inquisitor Torquemada tortured me until I said, confessionem esse veram, non factam vi tormentorum, I declare that I am a true and unheretical Catholic....
The good fathers of Salem required that I say I am not a witch, nor have I trafficked with Satan...
Senator Joe McCarthy demanded that I say that I am not now, nor have I ever been, a member of the Communist Party, or else name names....
Queen Elizabeth I, insisted I renounce Catholicism and "utterly testify and declare in my conscience, that the Queen's Highness is the only supreme Governor of the Realm . . . as well in all Spiritual or Ecclesiastical things or causes as Temporal, . . . So help me God."....
Jack Valenti and Hilary Rosen told me to swear my code does not circumvent or allow others to circumvent the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, under pain of Senator Fritz Hollings's Security Systems Standards and Certification Act requiring me to "include and utilize certified security technologies" on all my electronics.
Opinions on the Twiddler2 hand-held keyboard?
So, the first is full-on censorship. Plain and simple. You can think about whatever you like, but you don't have the freedom to tell anyone about it.
Now, the second requirement is the same as when engineers who are trying to make a better car engine have to give Ford the results of their research because they used a Taurus engine in their study. Hmmm...
The third means that not only am I responsible for who reads my research and what they do with it, but that a court of law has been given the power to determine whether what _I_ consider reasonable actually is "reasonable" (and of course the question is: "reasonable" according to whom?).
The fourth is just as bad as the third, for the same reason (what is "legitimate"?), and is in fact worse because it excludes people who are interested in encryption but do not either recieve or spend money (just time!) on their involvement in it.
Finally (my pragmatic argument), if a scientist has to worry that every time he or she writes a paper about encryption, he or she has to at the very least spend a few months defending it in court, and at the other extreme get thrown in jail, a lot of scientists probably just wouldn't bother.