Copyright Office Asks For Public Comments On DMCA

krygny writes "A number of news sites (ZDnet, theregister) are reporting that the US Copyright Office is accepting feedback on the affects of the DMCA. While it's unlikley to prompt changes in the law, lucid and valid anectdotes of how fair use of certain materials is infriged upon, may help determine the degree and nature of enforcement."

Comments

Posting comments here won't cut it.

[macdaddy357]

We all enjoy posting comments here, but they won't be read by the copyright office. Carefully craft your words, and write them.

Re:Posting comments here won't cut it.

[El_Nofx]

Ya, and someone should remind us all on the 19th of November when they actually do start letting us comment, most /.ers have a memory like a fruit fly.

Nice to see

[Anonymous Coward]

My submission:
I listen to my music on my computer. I like to load up several hours worth of music then just ignore it.

If we are only able to play music directly off the CD then I will loose the ability to do this.

write as an adult - respectful comments please

[Anonymous Coward]

Since you are trying to convince the feds to
treat copyright as a limited thing, please write
comments as an adult and be respectful

Vent then bend over

[nightsweat]

While I'm certain some sort of minor repeal of the DMCA will come about, I'm also certain that the partial repeal will take effect about ten minutes before another more restrictive bill called something like "The Save America From Terror Act" will go into effect, putting all the DMCA restrictions plus more new ones in place.

This is just a chance to vent so you can feel like you actually had a hand in the process. The only real hands in the process, of course, belong to the hands with dollar bills in them, headed for political coffers.

Re:Vent then bend over

[badnews_bear]

While I agree with you in that the only people who have their hands in this are the ones with the bills (read: dollar) in their hands, we cannot continue to think that way. The idea that the only people who are making the laws are the ones with the the money or the ones who can give the money to the lawmakers is false logic. It is only that way because we, the people, LET it get that way. I said this before, but I feel that it bears repeating until everyone gets it in their heads. You can make a difference in this. QUIT BUYING MUSIC. See how long the DMCA lasts against a consumer strike on digital goods (read: CD's). And yes, I can bitch because I no longer buy music of any sort (nor do I download it)....

Undermines democracy.

[Trusty Penfold]

You should let your elected representitives represent you in legal & governmental issues. If you have to get involved with every trivial decision that gets made then you will soon lose patience. It will only be the extreme members of society that will influence decision making - and then where will we be?

What good will this really do?

[kcbrown]

I mean, the Copyright Office doesn't enforce anything. That's the job of the executive branch: the FBI, the DOJ, etc. They can, and do, enforce whatever laws they want to enforce, and in any way they want to (depending, of course, on the instructions they receive from their corporate masters).

So how can writing up and sending in your thoughts about the DMCA to the Copyright Office have any more effect on anything related to the DMCA than posting to Slashdot?

It's not like most members of Congress are going to listen to these comments, since they owe their allegience to the corporations and not the people...

Re:What good will this really do?

[quitcherbitchen]

Any opportunity for public comment is a good thing. This is the way democracy gets its voice.

Draft up your opinons intelligently and give them to everyone who is willing to accept. The drops in the bucket are supposed to mount up to something.

the REASON for these submissions...

[forevermore]

... is not to repeal the DMCA, but if you read that first paragraph, they want to see if there are certain TYPES of work that should be exempted from the current broad coverage of the DMCA.

The problem with this is that the items many of us feel should be exempted are exactly the types of things that the DMCA was enacted to "protect" (cd's, dvd's, etc), and it would be very unlikely that the government would do anything to change that in such a "minor" alteration of the act.

Re:the REASON for these submissions...

[reallocate]

>> ...items many of us feel should be exempted are exactly the types of things that the DMCA was enacted to "protect"...unlikely that the government would do anything to change that.

There's a lot of cynicism expressed here about Congress being in the pocket of rich corporation, which ususally results in a "what's the use?" attitude.

Perhaps I'm naive, but it seems to me that the one thing even crooked politicians want more than money is to be reelected. If those of us who oppose the DMCA convince even a few incumbent Congresspersons that their reelection is at risk because of their stand on the DMCA, we might see some movement in the right direction. A few Libertarian candidate for House seats are speaking out against the DMCA, but we can expect their impact to be almost nil.

This would require demonstrating to mainstream voters -- those ordinary folks ofted derisively referred to as "users" -- why the DMCA threatens them and why this one issue, by itself, merits changing their vote.

Re:the REASON for these submissions...

[program21]

This would require demonstrating to mainstream voters -- those ordinary folks ofted derisively referred to as "users" -- why the DMCA threatens them and why this one issue, by itself, merits changing their vote.

And therein lies the problem. First, one would have to muster up enough people voting (hard in and of itself), and THEN convince them why the DMCA is bad. (or do that in reverse, I'm not sure which would work better).
We (most /. readers) understand the impact of the DMCA. Most ordinary people don't, and now the *AAs are planning to try and reach out to those people and effectively tell them the DMCA is good (not directly, mind you, but they'll get their shots in). Like it or not, the RIAA and MPAA have a huge advantage - money. They can advertise 'copying is bad' all over the place, it's a lot harder for the average /. reader to reach an the same audience with their message ('copying has legit uses, illegal copying is bad' or whatever it is they'd say).

what to exempt....

[Alcimedes]

let's see. i want cd's out of there. then movies.

why?

i like to listen to cd's on my computer. sadly enough, my monitor is larger than my TV, so i watch movies on there too.

if it's already illegal to make and sell copies of these cd's and movies anyway, what the hell is the DMCA doing other than stifling research into useful apps. for everyday folks.

if someone is making an illegal copy and selling it, throw them in jail. there have been laws in place to do this for years.

reminds me of people who want to create more restrictive gun laws. problem is no one is enforcing the ones that we already have.

does it make you feel any better that the criminal broke 17 laws to shoot your ass instead of 15 laws?

didn't think so.

same with this. if it's already illegal to mass produce and sell these cd's/movies, what's the DMCA really doing anyway?

Fair use

[roman_mir]

I must be able to buy a movie on a DVD and play this movie on a computer of my choice under operating system of my choice. If I choose to play the movie under some distribution of open source operating system, or any GNU (free software) operating system I must be able to do so. DMCA makes it impossible to legally play my DVD under GNU/Linux for example, since MPAA will not allow a license for DVD player software to be distributed under GNU; DMCA makes it illegal to reverse engineer DVD format.

MPAA DMCA FAQ

Question:

Doesn't the DMCA allow reverse engineering for compatibility, for example to allow playing of a DVD on a Linux operating system-driven personal computer?

Answer:

The DMCA does allow reverse engineering. However, the reverse engineering provisions in the DMCA were never intended to enable anyone to circumvent technical protection measures (TPMs) for the purpose of gaining unauthorized access to or making unauthorized copies of copyrighted works.

The DMCA does allow a lawful user of a computer program to circumvent TPMs to ensure that the program can work with other programs (interoperability); and, with strict limitations, the research may be shared with others, as long as it does not infringe the copyright in the original or a related work. However, reverse engineering is not permissible if there is a readily available commercial alternative for that purpose. In this case, there exist MANY commercially available DVD players.

Re:Really

[Soko]

lucid and valid anectdotes?

From Slashdot?

Which is the point, I think, for the gentle reminder from krygny.

One would hope that any person from Slashdot would think about thier response and make it palletable for the masses, instead of just allowing thier feelings about the DMCA to come to the fore un-abated. Your opinions will be on public display if you choose to respond, so please keep the invective for Slashdot comments, not on a site whose audience won't be so tolerant of trolling. There's no moderators out there, after all.

Soko

Wrong foundation altogether

[jukal]

in my very uneducated opinion, the whole DMCA is based on wrong foundation. IMHO, it is utterly stupid to try and define what exactly, technically you can do to software - or hardware - that you purchased. I mean, if the legislative forces really think this the correct way to fix things, then there should be the "Oil Painting Copyright Act" and "Ceramic Copyright Act". I think I have said this in some other thread as well, but..after 100 years all these legislators will be crying in their graves when they realize that software is no different and that they cannot just do the easy DMCA-kludge fix to serve needs of specific companies.

Illusion

[csnydermvpsoft]

Another case in which the government tries to continue to display the illusion that the country is still run by the citizens...

Re:Write!

[Anonymous Coward]

Voting libertarian will just make the party you disfavor least lose.

Instead try to change people's feelings about issues, and make them feel passionately the same way you do. If each person can just convince 2 others, eventually the ideas of digital freedom will appear in the polls and the politicans will cater to those feelings.

Don�t be so hard on the poster ...

[Snork Asaurus]

because it's probably a medical condition. In the northern hemisphere, the days are getting longer. This is when some people start to experience "Seasonal Effective Disorder".

On the comments to the DMCA issue: people of the United States, please take the opportunity to provide constructive inputs that will help to effect positive change a DEEPLY flawed piece of legislation that currently serves the interests of powerful corporations at the expense of the little guy. You have a voice - those of us outside your borders are affected by the DMCA but have no effective voice.

My $.015

[Saint Mitchell]

Do you like your Compaq computer?

If the DMCA had existed back in the day Compaq wouldn't have been legally allowed to reverse engineer the IBM bios and make PCs as common as they are today. A whole insdustry sprang from something now no longer possible. Many of the asian countries don't give two shits about your IP. They will reverse engineer it and make it better/cheper/faster. Why? Because they can. All the DMCA does is screw the small guy with the dream.

Suggestions on what to do

[Anonymous Coward]

If you feel strongly and want your voice to count, consider doing the following:

1. Plan on spending some time (~1-2 hour(s)).

2. Get remedial edication on DCMA
http://anti-dmca.org/
http://www.educause.edu/issues/dmca.html
and many other sites.

3. First (today/tomorrow), write to your Congressperson AND Senators on the wider view of why DMCA is a "bad thing" for society. Give some simple examples. Use your own words - no form letters, please. Write your message both in a text file so it can be pasted in an e-mail and a web-form (the method of communication varies between different legistative members).

http://www.senate.gov/
http://www.house.gov/writerep/

Select the senators/congresspersons you want to write to and send them e-mail or fill out the web form.

4. Be reasonable, respectful and all that - basic human relations stuff (and spell check!). Include your contact information.

5. Mark your calendar for Nov 19 (OR the week of Thanksgiving - what a good thing to do after you are stuffed with leftover turkey and resting the next day when most people are shopping) to write a *separate letter* to the Copyright office. Deal only with the narrow context of their request on interpretation and exceptions (but the irst letter to the congress-folks should deal with DMCA in the wider context).

http://www.copyright.gov/1201/fr2002-4.pdf for the context.

6. Write a short note to the same congress-folks you wrote before and CC them the letter to the Copyright office, emphasizing that the problem is with the DMCA itself, not the narrow copyright only context.

You may tell them it is more preferable to legistate human behavior rather than specific technologies.

Yes, it is work to paricipate in decision making. If we aren't willing to find some time to make the right input to the right people at the right time, we can't make a difference.

--
Rathinam

Re:Just vote.

[Yokaze]

> The only solution is to make it a law that every citizen MUST vote.

Think about it. How would that improve the situation?
Dee Em See Ay? Lower Taxes!!!
The difference would be that a small politically interested minority would be even smaller, and would even more dominated by the "dumb masses".
Don't get me wrong I'm a democrat. I'm against any regulation which puts restrictions on who should able to vote, or how much a vote counts. In my opinion, children should be allowed to vote, too.
But to choose not to vote, is in a way a vote, too.
It's a statement: I do not know enough, or do not care enough to vote. (Which in my opinion is the same)

Wouldn't it be better to encourage people to vote by giving them a better political education? Or giving the votes more weight by shifting the political power more to local administrations?

BTW, I voted every election I could and consider it as one of the responsibilities of a citizen. But responsibility cannot be enforced.
(Disclaimer: IANAA)

Registered DMCA Violators list

[Limburgher]

That might be how this is used. Maybe I'm being paranoid, but is the idea of Reichschancellor Ashcroft greasing the squeaky wheel, so to speak, that farfetched?

Re:Write!

[Hope Thelps]

Voting libertarian will just make the party you disfavor least lose.

If he's advocating voting libertarian then it's highly likely that the libertarian party is the one that he disfavors least. How would his voting for them cause them to lose?

Re:Write!

[Anonymous Coward]

If you are looking for instant gratification, then don't bother voting at all. If you want to make a difference in the long run rather than continue to support a failed, corrupt two-party system, then voting outside of it is the only thing to do. Either way it can only be a benefit:

• If the election is close, then enough votes for a third party could swing it from one major party to the other. The loser will definitely pay more attention to the people's wishes next time around.
• If the election isn't close, then your Rep/Dem vote would be utterly useless, so you might as well vote with your ideals. A 55%/40%/5% split is much more compelling than a 57%/42%/1% one.

I simply don't see the logic of making yourself part of the problem just so you can be on the "winning team".

Two things, and need a lawyer to write it

[Anonymous Coward]

Intent, and due process

For intent, the it must be a defense to the DMCA that if the intent was to exercise a fair use right, then it is allowed. If it meets certain criteria (news commentary, satire, education, or other fair use allowable exceptions) then arguments over how much of original article was quoted (as an example), then it must be considered prima facia evidence that the use falls under fair use, and therefore, due to intent, of the alleged infringer, the complainant in a DMCA case must overcome the prima facia threshold to prove a violation of the DMCA.

Due process:

From the previous stories and posts on slashdot of ISPs receiving demand notices of shutdowns of customers for DMCA violations, there must be due process prior to shutdowns. Currently, as reported on slashdot, and as testified to in Congressional Committee hearings, the MPAA and other leeches are sending demand notices to ISPs alleging that account holders, identified by IP address, are sharing copyrighted works. They demand the immediate shutdown of the accounts. Some ISPs are capitulating, some are shutting down only the most egregious violators after negotiating with the leeches, and some are holding out a little more. What is happening in this process is that the account holder is not receiving any notice, the plug is just being pulled.

Testimony has been heard in Congress of accounts being shut down without notice from account holders whose child had written a book report on Cinderella on one case, Snow White on another case, and Lord of the Pigs in another case. In all three cases, the leeches alleged that the account holders were trading copyrighted works. In all three cases, the accounts were shut down.

If my child writes a book report on my computer, based on a copyrighted work, does that give Jack Valenti the right to pull the plug on my dns servers, web servers (hosting other peoples' web sites, other peoples' email accounts, other peoples' voicemail services, other peoples' pager services, other peoples'...

There must be due process for this procedure. The internet is no longer a luxury. Children use the internet for research for school. Parents and teachers use the internet for communicating about their children, school closings, emergencies, and more. On September 11, cellular sites were overloaded, and cell phone service was knocked out for most of NYC. But the internet stayed up. People who died in the WTC were able to get email out to loved ones. People who survived were able to notify relatives that they were safe, and were on their way to sleep at a co-worker's home, or stay at a bosses' office, home, whatever. Children were able to contact their parents and tell them they had made it out of ground zero and were with their teacher. Libraries have argued to protect the rights of people to access pornography on their computers, and against filtering software, because people have the right to access the internet, it is a necessity, and they can access at the internet if they can't afford a computer. Laptops are now standard requirements at Universities.

Running a web site on your server? Does your child access the internet on your small home network? Can you afford to have your web site taken down without notice because your small ISP can't afford to fight the leeches' deep pockets? Care to guess how long your site will be down while you make arrangements to find another ISP, negotiate the price for additional static IP addresses, dns server use for your site, changing the registrar info for new dns servers, changing the dns server entries, having the information from the dns servers filter through the internet so your site is recognized once again by name not number?

If you make a living off of your site, I doubt you can afford to have the plug pulled on it for what could turn out to be a minimum two week period of downtime, and the associated costs of a new isp, deposits, minimum contracts, lost time, lost profits and more.

There must be due process before a disconnect is allowed. The due process time must be equal to whatever filing time periods are given to the leeches. Nothing less. During this due process, it must be structured to allow the account holder to dispute the allegations, and to fill out the form that transfers liability from the ISP to the account holder, thereby forcing the leeches to go after you instead of the ISP (which is all the ISP really wants, a transfer of liability), and which will therefore keep your internet connection up.

Who would fill out the form ? Since I run a "news site" or blog or whatever the current terminology is in fashion at the moment, and am therefore a reporter and publisher who quotes other news sites, it is therefore very likely that at some point in the future, I will be accused of a DMCA violation. I will not view it as such, I will view it as a Fair Use issue, news commentary. The only thing that will be at issue is how much I quoted, and whether the amount that I quoted falls under fair use or not. Since I'm willing to take the liability risk on what I publish, and since I don't want my plug pulled, I would fill out the letter as the law provides , but currently, the DMCA, as the leeches are applying it, does not even require my notice and opportunity to respond in this fashion, or give me the ability of defending my right to connectivity. This must change.

As to the other problems with the DMCA, that will be dealt with as the issues arise. But we must defend Fair Use at every corner, and take every opportunity and opening given to us to try and restore Fair Use rights to the public.

So, I am not a lawyer. A lawyer needs to take my arguments above on intent, on prima facia evidence, and on due process, and make them into a lucid statement, and submit them. Thank you. From all of us.