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New Anti-Circumvention Rulemaking Coming Soon
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.
Removing regulation for the types of thing listed on Fritz' hit list would be a start. How to word that, though? "Devices for personal playback of digitally encoded data and/or video" might be a good phrase :). I don't expect them to be so liberal, though.
The Right Reverend K. Reid Wightman,
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/
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.
Think about it: it's obvious the government doesn't want to eradicate the DMCA, but they do want to appease the [voting] linux/oss/internet croud.
Just don't get your hopes up; they also want to appease their campaign funding hollywood/MS/Whomever . So, instead, lobby to mold it to our means, since it's become obvious it is not going away.
Just turn it into a mosquito, as opposed to the flesh eating monster we have now.
Hmmm - where to begin? How about if it's as easy as breaking by swiping a black magic marker around the edge then it can't count. How about proof that this law has actually put $$$ into the hands of the artists. Ensuring that papers and discussions, especially related to news and education, absolutely cannot result in an arrest as what happened to Dimtry or that professor who was threatened. (After all, Dimtry has PhD in cryptography - if he's not allowed to talk, who is?).
Make a change? Then ensure that no matter what, peoples right to fair use and free speech cannot be infringed by this law.
But seriously, you can't pick apart this law, because its only teeth are the same words that prevent perfectly legitimate products and acts? The whole thing must go. Congress might come up with a laundry list of devices that are legitimate (Dreamcast serial cable) vs. devices that are often illegitimate (Xbox mod chip - hold the flames), but such a list would be instantly outdated. And then there's the problem of multiple classifications when people want to run Linux on their Xboxes and make all kinds of wonderfull new toys and usefull setups out of them. That is not copyright infringement, and yet it's prevented by a law that purports to be all about copyrights.
The DMCA should be taken off the books and the problem should be reapproached with new cooperation between enforcement and lawmakers, as well as a renewed ownous on industry to create solutions. Big media has ignored companies offering (more) secure solutions for years and let many of those companies dry up. It could have been a significant boon to the economy had the uber-rich media giants invested in these solutions rather than on lawyers and lobyists. Too often I heard them saying that Bertlesman / Napster was a test case and that its failure was their reason for reluctance. But what they failed to see was that Napster didn't have the desire to change their ways, let alone the experience and skill to come up with a valid solution. If these giant record labels and movie studios don't grow some balls and try some solutions...invest in some budding technologies, they deserve to fail.
I'm not an expert, but it appears to me that the DMCA doesn't protect copyrights that weren't already protected under existing laws.
Perhaps the legislative efforts should be focused on giving enforcement more ways to go after blatantly illegal networks and their users. Less public sharing channels could be gone after much the same way law enforcement goes after the mob. They don't outlaw baseball bats and guns, they catch someone in the act go up the tree from there by getting information and following known mobsters until they trip up.
"The article states they are mostly looking for what kind of exceptions they should make to the law." Um... May I suggest instead, we pressure legislators not to make a blanket law and then pock holes in it. If that is their approach they will undoubtedly leave perfectly acceptable actions illegal. It is my belief that the lawmakers should always error on the side of freedom and smaller government. List which situations to which the law applies, and not a list of when the law it doesn't apply.
Just so you know I wrote this three times. I was so angered the first time that the draft made no since and the second time I wrote too emotionally. This time I wrote it too fast, but now I'm tired of writing it.
Business News and Resources: www.usasource.net
Regional coding (mostly in DVDs) should be banned. Most DVDs released in other countries never come out here, and I shouldn't have to buy a second DVD player set to the another region to watch DVDs from overseas. If a movie doesn't get released in the theaters of a country overseas until AFTER the DVD release here in the US, the producing company doesn't deserve the financial help of any law to make up for their slow release schedule.
Regional coding is the kind of thing that I would expect from China, not the USA.
"...any specific types of works which should be exempted from part of the DMCA"
:-)
How bout EVERYTHING. I mean seriously, does anyone else think it's a little amusing that the same little notice that says it's a federal crime to use say paint thinner for anything other than its intended purpose applies to a freakin Xbox as well. I mean, we all know we need to be protected from ourselves, but this is out of hand
sig
How about having this law only apply to individuals who violate the law in the United States.
How about in general the U.S. limit their laws to people who live in the States.
Tournament Management Online &
Think of a favorite analogy of algorithms as 'recipes'. They can't ban "The Anarchists Cookbook", just stop you from actually cooking something up and using it. Any judge should be able to understand it this way.
"However, the copyright office says it has only a very limited scope to define exceptions to the law. In the last round, it carved out just two activities that could be exempted from the law. People could break through encryption onlists of Web sites blocked by Web filtering programs and could break protection on software or other "literary works" in cases where the copy control was obsolete or interfering with the functioning of the program, the office said."
That must make DeCSS legal then because without it a perfectly good DVD player can't play a perfectly good DVD on a Linux box. Same for encrypted CDs because copyprotection interferes with the program functioning in certain environments.
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
And when you say that the offenders didn't do the original crime yet then you must also demand that terrorists are only captured after they blown up something and not before their crime. From a legal point of view it's all the same.
It certainly is all the same, and thank goodness for that! Are you seriously proposing that we arrest "terrorists" before they have committed any crime? How can they be terrorists if they haven't done anything yet?
But you know, maybe you are right. We should arrest people who buy cars because that is preparation for vehicular manslaughter, driving under the influence, reckless driving and numerous other crimes. Clearly by purchasing a car they are preparing to commit a crime and we certainly what to arrest people before any crime is actually committed.
What if what you are preparing for is NOT a crime.
In Canada you can make personal copies of music for your own use, circumventing the copy protection on a CD just allows you to do something that IS legal.
If only the Librarian of Congress was actually a librarian. He's not - he has no degree in library science. He causes much agnst among librarians because of his rulings on the DMCA, webcasting, etc.
Here are some links relating to info about him:
His official bio
http://www.deepinthestacks.com/ - some commentary
"What we have here, is a failure to communicate." - Cool Hand Luke
It annoys me greatly when someone tells me the DMCA contains an exemption for scientists. This supposed exemption is an extremely thin, virtually nonexistent concession to the scientific community.
Aside from being limited to "encryption research" (only one component of security research, which did not cover the SDMI researchers,) the exemption contains a ridiculous requirement that scientists first ask permission from companies before collecting data or performing experiments---data which, coincidentally, might embarrass those companies. Is there any good reason why third parties should have themselves written into the scientific method?
Another major problem with the exemption: it only permits one step in the scientific process, the actual collection of data, the act of circumventing a DRM system. The next step, publishing or sharing that data with the scientific community, doesn't seem to be exempted, and has been the target of legal disputes in the past.
What I'd like to see: an exemption for the entire scientific method, which doesn't require the scientific community to be restructured or centralized or authorized by an entertainment industry or any other arbitrary group who can write laws.
I thought it said "New Anti-Circumcision Rulemaking"!
I guress that's what happens when you read slashdot before you've had your first cup o coffe in the morning.
Note to self: Keep coffe machine by the bed.
Smoke me a kipper, I'll be back for breakfast.
Does the DMCA have a severability clause? If so, then deeming any given portion unconstitutional will NOT overturn the entire law, only the particular section in question.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
Playing a DVD on a Linux PC is not a criminal act. Creating your own personal "various artists" CD out of a dozen albums which you have paid for is not a crime. Moving music you have paid for from a CD to a portable MP3 player is not a crime.
Unfortunately, the copy-protection mechanisms often force people to use circumvention techniques to perform the above legal activities. There are many legally justified reasons for using circumvention techniques, but the entertainment industry wants to make circumvention itself illegal even though it often is not used as "an action for preparing for a crime".
---------
There is inferior bacteria on the interior of your posterior.
As most people understand it, hot-wiring a car is preparation for stealing that car. However if the keyswitch is broken, and you don't have the time or money to replace that keyswitch, there is no law that prevents you from hot-wiring your own car. It may look strange, but it is not illegal. This is circumventing the security system on the ignition of your car, and it is not preparation for a crime.
The question then becomes "Is a CD/DVD more like a car, or a piece of software?" The reason for this question is that so far as I know, CDs and DVDs do not come with an end user licence agreement. A copyright notice is not an EULA, though it may be part of one. If a product is not covered by a EULA, then I do not know of any way that you can prevent a purchaser from legitimately using the contents of the CD in any way that they choose. You may restrict their ability to "re-distribute" the contents, that is part of the copyright, but if someone wants to convert their old record player into a device that can read a CD or DVD, (which requires knowledge I do not posess) a copyright notice is not sufficient to prevent this.
Other examples of things that can be used in "preparing a crime" include screwdrivers and paperclips, (which can be used in concert to pick a variety of locks) Pry bars (which can pry open windows) rocks (which can break windows) and many other devices which also have legitimate uses.
The fact that I posses these tools, does not imply that I have prepared for a crime, and is not sufficient on it's own to put me in jail. It may be enough for someone to start asking questions. In some countries that may be grounds for arrest, but not in the US.
I still have not seen the question of expired copyrights being adressed. What steps are being taken to verify that when a copyright expires, putting a creative work into the public domain, that that work will be available? Are DRM tools being developed that check to see if a copyright is expired?
Does your DVD player have the inteligence to know that 95 years after a work was copywritten by RCA that there are no longer any restrictions on who may distribute that work?
-Rusty
You never know...
Please read the PDF the LOC has provided. They state clearly their mandate from congress and what arguments might sway them.
The LOC doesn't give two rats whiskers about the constitutionality of the law. Do not write to them about the constitutionality of the law. They have one mandate, and that is to examine if there are "classes of works" for which enforcement of the DMCA would "substantially harm" legitimate, non-infringing use of those classes of works.
The legal battles to have the law overturned as unconstitutional are a logically seperate issue from what the LOC rules. If the LOC exempts certain classes of works (as it has already two), then either the law will be declared unconstitutional for another reason or enough works will be exempted (due to legitimate argumentation from interested/harmed parties) that the DMCA will be unenforceable by its own mandate.
The best solution would be to argue to the LOC according to its terms, conceding its strict mandate and forming coherent reasons that everything worthwhile should be exempt (one class at a time, like the PDF requests), and fight the battle of unconstitutionality in the courts. Any spurious assertions or argumentation will be posted on the LOC's webpage, but nobody will read past the first paragraph.
I don't need large brains to have a good time.
The LOC has a narrow mandate and they lay out very clearly what they will listen to and what they will not.
If you hope to submit a comment, or have any effect on the DMCA as a member of the general public, short of getting elected to congress or becoming a defendant, for god's sake read the PDF and construct a coherent argument according to their guidelines.
Last time around, these guidelines were not available as the LOC had a short time to prepare and didn't really know what they were looking for. This time the rules of the game are more clear. I think this provides circumvention advocates with a clearer path to a beneficial rulemaking.
Examples of things they don't want to hear about:
What they do want to hear about:
This isn't exhaustive. Read the PDF. Thanks.
I don't need large brains to have a good time.
Examples of things they don't want to hear about:
Constitutionality
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
It would be like asking a janitor in the Supreme Court building to declare the DMCA unconstitutional. You could do it, and he could do it, but it would have no effect because he has no mandate or authority.
You'd be wasting everyone's time.
I don't need large brains to have a good time.
[T]he Librarian of Congress is required by law...to see if there are any specific types of works which should be exempted from part of the DMCA.
How about everything? The law is flawed and Unconstitutional. There shouldn't be any exceptions because the law shouldn't exist in the first place. Holding a public forum to try to placate the public is not an acceptable method of creating Consitutional laws.
moto411.com
From the article:
Federal copyright regulators are opening the door for new exceptions to a controversial copyright law that has landed one publisher in court and a Russian programmer in jail.
We locked the guy up for fsck's sake. He didn't kill or rape or hurt anybody. He wasn't selling methamphetamines to unsuspecting school kids. What kind of message are we trying to send here? It's okay to embezzle bazillions of dollars as the head of a corporation with not so much as a slap on the wrist, but if we publish information a la those "How It Works" children's books, we can be thrown in jail with a complimentary ass pounding.
It makes me sick to know my tax dollars are supporting this kind bassackwards bullshit.
moto411.com
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.
So I suppose cooking recipies aren't protected either? After all, they're nothing but a series of actions rather than "expressions".
Oh well, at least I don't have your US problems, we make up enough of our own...
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Remember that income tax was introduced as a "temporary measure" to fund the First World War. It wasn't widely criticized, as the winning the war seemed a much more important issue than the "slight" privacy invasion of having to report our income to the government. Well, the war is long since past, but we still pay enormous amounts of income tax.
If I can be modded down for being a troll, can I be modded up for being an orc, or a balrog?
Encrypted distribution can be used to prevent the limited term and the necessary public access required by the Consititution. Works can be rendered unreadable after the copyright expiration. Therefore, I would suggest that encrypted distribution should only be protected under copyright law if provision is made for release of unencrypted distribution at term expiration. This provision should be that the copyright holder should provide an unencrypted rendition of the work of equivalent (or higher) quality to the Library of Congress. Until this is provided, the copyright of the encrypted work should be considered invalid.
Not to mention the obvious comments that all circumvention devices have fair-use potential and should therefore be permitted.
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