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Debunking (some) DMCA Myths
An anonymous reader writes "C|Net's News.com is running an article under their Perspectives section about some of the myth and hype surrounding the DMCA. The author talks about how the EFF is exaggerating the danger from the DMCA. The author mentions that although "the DMCA is both an egregious law and a brazen power grab by Hollywood, the music industry and software companies", groups like the EFF are not much better, engaging in "fear-mongering" and scare tactics to increase opposition."
The risk that a researcher could go to jail for giving a speech at an academic conference is essentially zero
True, but not all speeches and research is presented at an 'academic conference,' now are they. It seems this implies that the author does not support research outside of a institution such as a business or university. Do employees of these places now have more rights than other people? If that's true, i'd be even more against the DMCA than the view of it they're trying to debunk!
The article in question DOES make a few good points in that many of the more extravagant floggings with the DCMA probably wouldn't have held up in court, and WERE blown out of proportion by the EFF and others.
Some say that making such a big deal out of those (relative to how big of a deal they were initially) helps to motivate the public against the DCMA.
This is most likely true.
But what else can it do? It can motivate the less tech and law savvy people (IE: University administrators that control the flow of research funds) to cave immediately to nastygrams that would never manage to hold up in court.
The FUD put out on some (not all, and mostly those related to Acadamia) of the DCMA cases has allowed Hollywood to use the DCMA as a bluff, knowing that most administrations will cave instead of taking it to court.
The DCMA itself isn't as far reaching as many say it is, but by saying it is, they may have managed to allow Hollywood to use it like it is (that far reaching), unchallenged.
Dark Nexus
"Sanity is calming, but madness is more interesting."
If you believe the buzz, you'll conclude that programmers, academics and engineers should be scared witless about being sued under the DMCA. In effect for nearly two years, the law sets protections for the codes that are wrapped around certain copyrighted content such as DVDs and electronic books.
After 2600 and DeCSS, why yes, yes I am scared witless about being sued under the DMCA. All I have to do is make something, someone finds a way to use it for copying some material, and I'm in deep trouble.
It does not matter that the DMCA doesn't apply to many situations. Most people don't know exactly what the DMCA covers...all that needs to happen is someone charges me with violating the DMCA. Regardless of whether the charge ends up being valid, you have been "tainted" and most people won't understand just how false the charges were. Having to defend yourself against these charges can result in large financial losses, not to mention the possibility of being fired.
Sometimes the method of determining the intent of a device is so esoteric, many people will think you just scraped by on a technicality.
I don't think the EFF has been hyping this enough. I can go through a day without talking to someone who has ever heard of the DMCA or the EFF. We are the beginning of a new generation, where we depend on the storage and transfer of digital information in our daily lives. It's our responsibility to make sure that this new frontier isn't locked down and commercialized before we have a chance to explore it. This is our generation and our responsibilty.
When you're standing in a pit of snakes, the moment you become complacent and careless is when they strike.
...
Declan is not inherently a friend of free software, a foe of the DMCA, or indeed a friend of freedom at all.
/. and elsewhere.
He is a friend of Declan, and he will do whatever it takes to advance his career, irrespective of how many people he harms in the process.
In the early days of LiViD (the first group to get a semi-working software DVD player under GNU/Linux) Declan McCullagh hung out on the livid mailing list. After he had a very good idea what was going on (work to create a DVD player under GNU/Linux) he published, in WiReD, a hysterical article about hackers writing software to enable rampant DVD piracy. The story was carried here on
As a result, several lead developers in the project were threatened with legal and criminal action (though no crime had been committed) and had to withdraw from the project. While others took over their responsibilities, this probably delayed the development of a working DVD player for GNU/Linux by a couple of months, and nearly wrecked the lives of several software volunteers.
Thanks to Declan, who never once admitted any wrongdoing (despite the flagrant yellow journalism that precipitated the problem, and likely led to the entire DeCSS fiasco as well), never once apologized, and remained quite arrogant during his entire tenure on the mailing list.
Later he passed himself off as a "friend" of freedom and an anti-DMCA activist/journalist. It gained him widespread popularity in some circles and some degree of recognition.
Now, clearly, he has determined that he can advance his carreer by toning down, perhaps even reversing, his stance on the DMCA. Hardly surprising, since, as a "journalist" he works for a publisher which is, almost by definition, a member of the very copyright cartel that is pushing the DMCA and similiar legislation.
Declan is a friend of Declan, the rest of us are tools to be used and discarded as needed to advance his own career.
Being stabbed in the back by such a person, given his history of behavior, should come as no surprise to anyone who has been paying attention.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
> Rosen, Valenti et al are students of history. They know that the door swings both ways.
True. A little bit of reading in legal history will uncover many examples where a law passed to change the existing legal opinion was limited by the existence of a body of precedent. (The examples I can think of off the top of my head are the law of privacy -- which has been incorporated into common law in every US state except for New York, where even the passage of a law defining a right to privacy has been limited by their court system; the other example is Canada's Bill of Rights, which their Supreme Court has held is limited by pre-existing common law.)
Unfortunately, there is little legal precedent to extend or limit DMCA. Neither the US Supreme Court nor any of the State courts have shown whether they embrace the corporist ideas of ``intellectual property" or Lessig's ideas of public domain.
> I believe their thinking is that they
> should grab as much land as they are allowed to grab, so that when the door swings back, maybe it will be left leaning
> a bit to their side.
As the saying goes, possession is nine-tenths of the law. Ask any landlord who forceably evicts a tenant 6 months behind in the rent.
Geoff
I think I see a trend here. Maybe for them it really would be easier to muzzle the entire internet than to produce p