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Send Congress Your Comments On DRM Legislation
stry_cat writes "The people who want to control what you can and cannot copy have got Congress to consider requiring every computer sold to include special circuits that limit what files you can copy.
The Senate Judiciary Committee is
soliciting public comments on this legislation."
Why is it that a issue this huge to our community is buried in the YRO section and not showing on the front page?
This is a big issue and our chance to speak up...
look what we did for w3c and RAND....
Power Corrupts,Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely, leaving one person(group)in charge is absolutely corrupt.
#!/usr/bin/perl
print "Dear estemeed congress person\n"
print "Here is how I feel about DRM"
while (1)
{
print "NO! ";
}
print "\nThank you for your consideration.\n"
Incidentally, this should be on the front page...
I'm a PhD student at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, PA. As a computer researcher I know that it is vital to have access to general-purpose, open computers. Mandatory Digital Rights Management technology in computers would make it unacceptably difficult to study and improve upon computer systems.
In addition, I'm also worried that DRM technology would raise the barriers to entry with regard to amateur content creation. As it stands, it is easy for anyone to create their own pictures or music or stories or movies, encode them in standard formats, and share them with people -- this has led to a rich and flourishing landscape of amateur content on the internet. Implicit in the Digital Rights Management proposals that I have seen is the idea that content is created only by the large corporations that make up the entertainment industry. By requiring content creators to license patents or programs, meet difficult requirements, or use proprietary formats, the amateur is locked out of effectively distributing his work. Infringing on the ability for amateurs to create and share their own works is a tragedy beyond any other consequence of DRM. After all, the purpose of copyright as stated in the constitution is to "promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts!"
Please don't stifle technology innovation, and the vast and wonderful potential for our consumers to become content creators themselves, all just to protect business models of the last century. Leave the burden on these businesses to prosecute copyright infringers, or to otherwise develop content delivery systems that are are profitable AND friendly to consumers.
Seriously. If you don't have anything new to add to the comments, just write up something summarizing the problems you've already seen. In doing that, you let congress know that you as a consumer actually care about your fair use rights.
The comments on this legislation so far are overwhelmingly negative. Let's keep it that way, by letting them know that normal individuals absolutely do not want to be subject to mandatory DRM.
Oh, and I'll echo something that was said above: Editors, why the hell isn't this up on the front page where more people can see it? This is a chance for us sedentary slashdotters to make an impression without getting up off of our butts and going to the post office. We should take advantage of that.
P.S. I already submitted my comment. Have you submitted yours?
Just like I posted it, here it is. - As a voter and a citizen of the United States of America, I think it is time to make a comment to congress regarding the recent proposal of a chip to be placed in new computers to control what can (not) be copied. In short, this is a very bad idea. I honestly see this chip as proposed by DRM proponents as something Congress could use to control what we could move around on our computers. Basically, it would be an embedded dongle. The problem here is that these proposals are being foisted around by people who don't understand technology, and unlike the V-chip, would shake the foundations of the computing world, requiring major redesigns in every aspect of computing. I also see this as something of a violation of our rights as granted in the first and fourth amendments to the US Constitution. It is Congress passing legislation that controls what is stated by the people, which per the first is wrong, and it would also have Congress assuming that everybody in the US is committing a crime. This brings up another tenet of the constitution: was not one of the principles this country was founded upon being that all people (criminals included) were innocent until proven guilty by the courts? We've stepped away from that because of media distortion, however this brings the ideal that the government assumes we must all be stopped from committing these crimes. The third reason I am against this is due to the waste. Plain and simple, such a device will not work. Whereas in the physical realms, one must exert tremendous effort and/or money to work around something put in place as to block them from doing something (let's say a tax lien being a problem that prevents somebody from taking a loan out, for instance), in the "cyber" realm, as it were, one can easily crack through the chip. It is not foolproof, nor will it be, and it will be worked around. In short, please do not waste your time on something that cannot be enforced.
This sig no verb.
Will I retire or break 10K?
It contains documents written up by various industry organizations, including the MPAA.
One particularly interesting quote (from the CONTENT PROTECTION STATUS REPORT II):
There has been no progress toward establishing a dialog with
the Information Technology industry aimed at developing
technological means to stem the avalanche of movie theft on
so-called "file-sharing" peer-to-peer networks. Neither an April
12 studio CEO letter nor a May 16 follow-up letter to nine
technology company CEOs requesting a high-level working
group have received a response.
Good.
Also, I love how they use the word "avalanche". First of all, these movies are something on the order of 400-500 MBs in size. So there can't be all that many people downloading them--who wants to wait that long? At that point you may as well rent the darn thing! Secondly, even if the file sizes were small, the population of file swappers is tiny, miniscule in comparison to the vast number of people who purchase or rent the movies. Hollywood is easily, easily spending more on legal fees and lobbying than they are losing from file-swapping forms of copyright infringement.
Without question their greatest enemy is the black market, where cheap, illegal copies of movies are being made. And why aren't they targeting VCR manufacturers, who actually create tape copiers that ignore copywrite protections?
Karma: Chevy Kavalierma.
If the point is to 'filter' data over the internet, how in hell would it be posible to make a DRM that could filter out copyrighted material out of shh-like incrypted/compressed data lines?
The only way they would be able to do so is by outlawing encryption (and any kind of privat communication) and any kind of unlicenced (criminal) creativity (ban on programing, writing, etc).
Basicly the only kind of goverments that want this to happen are shortshighted dictatorships.
Please remember this:
"We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness -- That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its Foundation on such Principles, and organizing its Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."
More over: This is the same problem as with the war on terrorisme: the only way to 'win' is if the goverments crushes anyone that has a hope for a beter world, a beter world then this.
A freedom fighter and a terrorist are the same, only one was lucky enough that he won, the other one lost.
The difference between a hero, a villan, or an idiot is the public.
And no, it's not good enough if the people may choose who their dictator will be: that is not a reasonable choice.
The future will not be democratic.
What I cannot create, I do not understand
EFF's Action Center also has a couple of Fax-your-rep forms about this issue, urging them to support the two recently mentioned acts:
Support the Digital Choice and Freedom Act!
Support the Digital Media Consumers' Rights Act!
Oh, and I agree with all the other posts; this does belong on the front page.
Let me say up front, any sort of Digital Rights Management (DRM) system is a bad idea. It will by its very nature restrict the rights and freedoms enjoyed by generations of Americans for no other purpose than to increase the profits of the Entertainment Industry at the expense of consumers and the much larger Tech Industry.
In order for ant sort of Digital Rights Management system to be acceptable, the following list MUST be implemented;
1. Fair Use as it existed prior to 1998 must be protected. Circumvention must be allowed for personal use, interoperability, reverse engineering and research both public and private.
2. DRM must not interfere with anyones right to make and distribute their own content. Content providers should be allowed to distribute their content without DRM protection and consumers should be able to use unprotected content without restriction. If a content provider wishes to protect their work with DRM, any required digital certificates will be free and easy to obtain.
3. DRM must be an open and public specification with no licensing fees attached.
4. All DRM systems must protect the rights of the consumer. DRM systems must protect the privacy of the user and can not interfere with free speech, free expression, freedom of the press or any other freedom provided by the constitution.
5. The burden of Enforcement must be on the content provider, not on the consumer or the provider of the DRM system. The burden of enforcement must also not be with any government body beyond what is provided for by current law.
6. DRM must not interfere with any other use of the system.
"Our products just aren't engineered for security,"
-Brian Valentine,VP in charge of MS Windows Development