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Protecting Your DRM Rights
A reader wrote to say:"There's an article on SiliconValley.com that talks about a new bill in Congress that will, if passed, mean that consumers can copy CDs, DVDs and other digital works for personal use, just as they now do with TV shows and audio tapes."
I think there's some danger here in enumerating the right to copy CD's, etc. It's the same issue that John Adams had with the Bill of Rights. If you enumerate some rights, it implies that other rights don't exist until they're enumerated. Take for example the right to privacy. The Bill of Rights doesn't list it, and therefor much debate ensues about whether or not such a right exists.
While having a law explicitly naming the right to copy CD's is seductive, we risk having to always enumerate new rights in the future. Instead, I'd prefer to have the default be "of course we have this right, because it's not explicitly listed as a right that's not allowed".
I realize I'm dreaming here. Given where we are as a society, I'd be willing to see this bill passed. But a guy can dream.
It is our duty as citizens to disobey unjust laws and to push them through the judicial system to the Supreme Court. It is counterproductive to that duty to prop up the unjust laws with exceptions and clarifications. Further, between the DMCA and the proposed DFCA, all that has been accomplished is a wordy reiteration of the existing copyright laws. I'm no legal eagle, but I firmly believe in having a few concise and necessary laws rather than redundant spaghetti legal code.
Hmmm, (1 million * 4.7GB) / (24 hrs * 60 mins * 60 secs) = 54GB/sec bandwidth! Jack's cable modem must not have the download caps in place...
First of all, this bill is not an attempt to make so-called mp3 "sharing" legal. It merely seeks to ensure that the fair use rights consumers had for analog formats are held up for digital formats as well. i.e., it is perfectly legal for me to buy your CD, then burn a backup copy, burn another copy for my car, rip it to my hard drive, etc. However, if the DMCA or CBDTPA makes these activities impossible, then I effectively don't have those fair-use rights.
Anyway, the line we always hear is that artists don't make a significant amount of money from CD sales anyway, compared to income from live shows. Is that not the case for you?
Maybe you could strive to sell CDs directly at your shows, instead of making pennies per disc through your label.
Liberal (adj.): Free from bigotry; open to progress; tolerant of others.
All you trolls on slashdot should pay attention and learn from Jack Valenti. He dishes out FUD with statements that are unsupported and wildly speculative (and in this case a complete lie).
Slashdot: Where people pretend to be twice as smart as they really are by behaving like children.
I've said it before, but it bears repeating.
The issue to me is that they (being the movie and record companies) want to have it both ways. They want to sell me a package that includes a piece of physical media (which I own) and a license to view/listen to what is recorded on that media.
I don't have a problem with that. What I do have a problem with is the fact that 1. I legally can't back that medium up and 2. if that medium becomes damaged my license to view/listen seems to evaporate.
Case in point. I irreparably scratched a DVD from Fox (The Phantom Menace). My only recourse is to buy replacement media and a second license to view the movie. Clearly that license is the expensive part. I don't see how this is "fair."
Bottom line is that IMO when we lost the right to make copies for backup the copyright holders took on the responsibility to do at-cost media replacement, but they aren't living up to that responsibility.
Of course the bills mentioned in the article would turn the tide back, but neither seem to have any real chance of even coming to a vote.
-Peter
What right to make a living off your work? There never has been such a thing, and there shouldn't be. There are rights that are helpful in making a living (like copyright) but they don't give you a right to make a living. Nobody should make a law to preserve an old way of doing things just because some people might be hurt by the world changing. If you can't make money selling your CDs, you'll just have to get another job.
There's no point in questioning authority if you aren't going to listen to the answers.
When you say that because of some people who bootleg we should all have our rights stripped away (and that is what your saying) I dismiss any problems you might have because if you dont give a damn about my rights why should I give a damn about you career?
No, you don't. "Fair Use" allows me to copy my CD into MP3s and store them on mu computer so I can listen to them at my desk without toting my CD collection all over the house. It also allows me to put a copy in my portable MP3 player and listen to it while at the gym or on the bus.
It does not allow me to make copies and give them away.
The money from my purchase of your CD is still in your pocket. I'm not going to buy multiple copies of your CD just so I can listen to it at my desk, or at the gym or in my living room.
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
Supposedly consumers will be allowed to circumvent copy protection for fair use. Great! But what about the programmers? Does each consumer have to write their own software cracker? Will creating a decoder or unlocker designed for fair use still get you thrown in jail?
From the press release summary:(I've added the bold...)
SECTION BY SECTION ANALYSIS OF "THE DIGITAL CHOICE AND FREEDOM ACT OF 2002"
SECTION 1: Designates the title as "The Digital Choice and Freedom Act of 2002."
SECTION 2: Lists factual findings.
SECTION 3: (a) Section (a) clarifies that America's historic principles of fair use - codified in section 107 of Title 17 - apply to analog and digital transmissions...
...Section (b) seeks to restore the balance by adding section 123 to Title 17. Section 123 allows lawful consumers to make backup copies of digital works, and to use digital works on preferred digital media devices. It further protects consumers by prohibiting non-negotiable "click-wrap" licenses that limit their rights and expectations...
SECTION 4: Today, when a consumer purchases a book, they are free to lend their copy to a friend or family member, or to sell their copy to a used books store. Section 4 allows consumers to do the same thing with digital content by extending the first sale doctrine...
SECTION 5: ..."As the House Judiciary Report accompanying the DMCA stated: "[A]n individual [should] not be able to circumvent in order to gain unauthorized access to a work, but should be able to do so in order to make fair use of a work which he or she has acquired lawfully."
Section 5 reaffirms this intent, while also providing needed flexibility for the copyright owner. Under section 5, a copyright owner is free to employ technical measures to protect his or her work. However, the copyright owner must ensure that those measures allow lawful consumers to make non-infringing uses of the work... Since most consumers do not have the expertise needed to circumvent such protections, Section 5 permits tools if they are designed, produced and marketed to help consumers make non-infringing uses. Again, these tools are only permissible if the copyright owner fails to give consumers a choice by restricting legitimate uses without providing any solution for the legitimate user.
Here is an excerpt of my letter of support sent to my congressman:
I have one little quibble with the bill as it stands. In section 2. FINDINGS, paragraph (2), it states "Perfect digital copies of songs and movies...". This is an exaggeration that has been used by both the RIAA and MPAA to justify draconian copyright protection measures. They purposely confuse two different concepts: "digital copies" and "digital distribution". The reality is:
(1) Digital copies are far from perfect
(2) The quality of a copy has little impact upon non-commercial copyright infringers
Take an example from ten years ago, the mandating of copy-protection on Digital-Audio-Tape recorders. The only people who cared about quality enough to be effected by the copy-protection measures were audiophiles (who, by the, way effectively killed the format because of the restrictions imposed by congress). The irony is that audiophiles were also the least likely people to make illegal copies; on the contrary, many purchase multiple versions of a single recording. The more typical non-commercial copyright infringement was young teenagers buying $50 boom-boxes with abysmal sounding cassette duplication. The quality of the duplication was of minimal importance (you can't hear the poor quality on a $50 boom-box), as it had minimal impact on their decision to make illegal copies vs. buying legal copies.
I'd recommend striking the word "perfect", and putting to rest the urban legend that digital copies are somehow different from other method of copying. This is not meant to diminish the importance of digital distribution, which obliviously has had an impact on non-commercial copyright infringement. Confusing "digital copies" with "digital distribution" is how we got lousy laws like the DMCA in the first place.