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New Anti-Circumvention Rulemaking Coming Soon

Posted by michael on from the you'll-hear-more-about-it-soon-enough dept.

zurab writes "According to CNet, copyright regulators are considering a rare public comment (pdf) process on the controversial DMCA law. The article states they are mostly looking for what kind of exceptions they should make to the law." If you recall, the Librarian of Congress is required by law to conduct a review process every three years to see if there are any specific types of works which should be exempted from part of the DMCA. You can see loc.gov for some information about the current and previous rulemaking procedures, and this piece I wrote after the last rulemaking was finished, examining what did and didn't work to convince the bureaucrats.

2 of 81 comments (clear)

  1. Dont exampt anything! by Billly+Gates · · Score: 5, Interesting
    If we want the supreme court to rule the dmca unconstitutional then we definetly want all the bad parts intact. For example, if we take off the clauses that deal with free speech and hyperlinking, then the dmca will remain fully constitutional and will remain intact for all eternity. Linux will die off thanks to palidium which ms will use the dmca to make sure only windows will run on it.

    And no, code has not been ruled as free speech according to the courts. Linux will not qualify as speech and will be unprotected by the us constitution. The judge presiding over the case of the MPAA vs Jon Johnshon ruled that code was a series of "actions" rather then "expressions" and will remain how courts look at code untill another judge questions this.

    If the dmca is ever overturned then we can port linux to pallidium and the xbox without a mod chip and ms wont be able to do shit.

    Please common on about the unconsitutionalality of the law but do not write comments about specific bad sections which may help the EFF in court.

    --
    http://saveie6.com/
  2. Discussion of security vulnerabilities by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Free speech involving security vulnerabilities.

    It makes little sense to be allowed to post a patch containing C code to fix a security vulnerability to a public mailing list, and yet not be able to post English text that contains the same information.

    I don't particularly care about not being able to "make mp3z from my cdz", but I don't want my webservers rooted just because somebody wasn't allowed to post a patch.

    If somebody doesn't patch their server, they are being irresponsible, not the person who posts details of the vulnerability.

    At the end of the day, if your server is vulnerable, disconnect it from the network. If you don't like the idea of download, use software that doesn't have a terrible track record of security flaws.