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Perens Backs Down from DMCA Violation
liquidsin writes "According to this article by Dan Gillmor, Bruce Perens has backed out of his plan to demonstrate how to modify a DVD player to break region coding (and openly violate the DMCA as well) due to pressure from his employer, Hewlett Packard. I wish HP had given him their blessing on this, but I guess they have to worry about shareholders first..." See our previous story for Perens' plans.
What would be far more effective and less risky would be for Bruce to figure out a nice cute way to get each member of the audience to violate the DMCA.
It seems to me that I recall from the few law courses I took that when an employee breaks a law during the faithful performance of his duties, his employer is equally culpable and thus open to criminal liability.
Now, whether he was going to be doing this in the faithful performance of his duties is a matter of some debate, but I can fully understand HP's nervousness in this matter.
A better (and more efficient if less symbolic) thing to do would be for Perens to convince HP to use their [considerable] legislative influence to get the DMCA modified. Companies lobbying against laws with which they disagree is a hallmark of the American corporate world.
Zaphod B
When duplication is outlawed, only outlaws will have
One of the best things about Bruce Perens is that he's so active in the actual community as well as the upper-echelons of aforementioned community - he's so active here, on the Slashdot forums, lending a great dialogue to any article about him.
Then again, do we know what would of happened to all those OSS projets funded by HPAQ if he had of gone through with this? Where would Perl be?
Swallowing his pride may of been the lesser of 2 evils. It most certainly isn't a black and white situation. Grow up.
HP likely said "Put those huge balls back in your pants. You'll get to use them later - in spades."
Soko
"Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm." - Anonymous
If you are truely so offended, then I humbly suggest that you volunteer to perform the DMCA violating presentation as an introduction to Mr Perens' presentation.
In other words: take up the banner or shut the hell up. The last thing we need is more armchair revolutionary grumbling.
Alternatively, you could take a little time to educate yourself about the actual reason HP asked him not to do the demonstration, and perhaps even explore the actual reason he agreed. I suspect an old adage regarding picking ones battles applies here.
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
Looks like Mr. Perens might be able to make a better case for prior restraint now.
Or maybe he caved, as most of us do that have to live and work in the real world.
Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day.
Teach him to eat and he will fish forever.
I think, the result from this could be quite serious and doesn't change an otherwise very scary future picture of Internet use in the US.
The entire fiasco sets a very bad precedent for DMCA observance.
First of all, Mr. Perens I don't believe acted intelligently, in behalf of the Open Source community, by legally attempting to challenge the law while being employed by someone who has no choice but to observe it.
I would have thought that would have been common sense, readily realized by Mr. Perens.
Secondly, this could do some serious damage to the credibility of what Open System Engineering/Source attempts to do:
That is to free the market place from corporations attempting to garner complete control over every single piece of equipment, professional occupation, or ideas that are produced using a computer, and making it legal (Required by law actually) to tax it at ANY price they see fit.
If you don't pay that price you can't:
1) Create Software of any kind.
2) Own a Computer of any kind.
3) Access any sort of information of any kind.
4) Create ideas using digital technoloy of any kind.
Unless...you pay said corporation a fixed sum, or give up rights to everything you create to said corporation and ONLY use thier products to do so.
Congress has legislated a DMCA that will destroy this countries IT economy as it tries to compete under those conditions with countries that do not recognize such draconian practices on its populace.
It will be virtually impossible, for the US to compete in the world economy if patent laws, DMCA laws are allowed to stay in place. How can you produce computers for example when half the cost of the computer is locked in a monopoly market driven software industry in the USA, and hope to undercut local distributors as such in China for example, who are building thier own OS's or preloading Linux on the same computers for 50% less?
All of this of course is a monpoly that has been legislated by a collusion between industry and government that is making the IT industry in this country extremely ill, running amock with corruption, bad products, and close to ZERO innovation now for the past 4 years.
Hang on to your Devils and Penguins boys in girls because very very soon, THE MAN will be knocking at your door asking why you are web serfing on a UNAUTHORIZED piece of STATE equipment NOT endorsed by COMPANY X who RUNS THE INTERNET.
Don't you KNOW SILLY MAN, we need to control what you information you access, use and pay for because you MIGHT BE A TERRORIST.
Hack
Got Geometrodynamics? Awe, too hard to figure out? Too bad.
Well it would not be something as an official black list but imagine your a manager at a competing company and Prens comes in for a job.
Any manager would have major reservations about hiring someone who would openly and publicy go aginst his employers wishes to possible deteiment to the employer.
If he were to go through with it then get hired somewhere else then pull the same kind of thing, then it would not be only him but the higher ups would prob point thier fingers at the guy that hired him as well.
"Don't mess with him, he taunts the happy fun ball."
As much as I dislike HP (and risk losing mod points), I have to say that I understand their position.
Our legal system is so screwed up that there's a distinct possibility that **AA might be able to find HP liable in some way for Perens' actions. Even if they don't, it's worth it to the **AA to try.
HP, understandably, would prefer not to have to spend untold millions of dollars defending itself against this.
While I, too, wish HP was willing to risk the liability for the chance to stand up for what's Right, I understand their position. And I understand that Perens understands their position. And so I understand why Perens is backing out. I don't blame him, and I full believe that he intended to go through with it. But there's no reason/point/honor in exposing your employer to multi=-million dollar liability (or multi-million dollar legal bills) unless the entire company is will to stand behind his actions.
Maybe next time..
Hire a Linux system administrator, systems engineer,
Hollywood is winning the ability to use the DMCA to coerce individuals and corporations to bend to their will...
So don't buy their products. It's really not that difficult.
and we are losing the ability to have freedom with the information that we've legally paid to have access to (e.g. the information on a region-encoded DVD)...
We've already lost that ability. That's what copyright law is all about. Also, see above. If you don't like it, don't buy it.
that is why people better start caring... because the day may not be distant when your CD player, your PC, your DVD player, even your car stereo will have to ask permission from the MPAA or RIAA before being able to play a piece of media, even if it's legally obtained...
If you don't like it, don't buy it.
freedom is at risk... I @!$#ing care about that...
Very little actual freedom is at risk, unless you mean the freedom to profit off the copyright infringement of others. How has the DMCA affected your life? It hasn't affected mine one bit. But then again, I'm not profiting off the copyright infringement of others. Go figure.
Assuming that I could count on getting legal support from the EFF, yes.
Wussy pansy crap like this is why I gave up on political action with geeks.
Geeks are wimps. Geeks are happy to complain and bitch online, even writing a paper letter on occasion . But face a geek with some serious attempt to go against the grain, and he collapses.
Pressure from society, government, and employers scares the living shit out of geeks. I was laid off about a year ago, and found a new job immediately, but took a month off. I spent the first two weeks doing nothing but trying to motivate people into some poltical work with UCITA and the DMCA. The most I got out of it was a couple guys agreeing to write letters if I brought pens, paper, and envelopes to a LUG meeting because they couldn't be bothered to do it themselves.
We need an event to motivate geeks. Perens has decided not to be the one who does it, although one person being arrested probably won't do much, the last few times it happened people made phone calls, wrote letters, and the the EFF handled the legal stuff. We need something bigger. We need a room full of geeks, or someone like Linus tossed in jail for a very stupid reason. Until that happens, I'll just keep watching like everyone else.