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DMCA Comments Posted At Copyright.gov
Ascaroth writes "The DMCA comments on 'Rulemaking on Exemptions from Prohibition on Circumvention of Technological Measures that Control Access to Copyrighted
Works' have been posted."
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Executive summary
as ever, there were many good points made by representatives of the media corporations and fair use advicacy groups. However, two comments were outstanding in their clarity and eloquence - one was a comment from a Mr. J. Valenti which said "Fair use is a myth spread by a bunchof unwashed hippes, and there should be no exceptions. I'm a member of a public, so I know what the public wants" which had $100 000 in used notes. stapled to it.
The other was from a Ms Hilary Rosen. This one was delivered in a Ferrari, and stated "If you make some exceptions, they'll just wnat more, so don't bother and save yourself the hassle. P.S. Keep the keys"
Clearly, the rest of them were just written by a bunch of pirates and unwashed hippies, so I spat on them, and then used them as firelighters.
The summary of Klawans' comments runs as follows:
In his comments, Klawans makes reference to old Jazz 78 rpm records that he has transfered to CD, AND which he says record companies will not reissue because they are not profitable.This argument is strongly flawed. First, the preservation of art form has little to do with profitability and everything to do with art lover's willingness to preserve those forms. History is full of examples of obscure books, art, and music that have been preserved while more popular (profitable) works fell by the wayside.
Furthermore, the proper way to preserve musical recordings like 78 rpm records is to preserve the means of playing those records. For example. 78 rpm record players are still readily available, they just take some work to find. Putting these recordings on P2P networks for anyone to download just denies descendants of the original artists of those recordings their rightful royalties.
I'm in favor of fair use, but no progress will be made against the DMCA's overly restrictive policies by using bad logic.
That page is just chock-full of some absolutely irrefutable reasons that the DMCA cannot possibly be applied to, essentially, anything, without destroying every notion of fair use we hold sacred. Things I hadn't even thought of - like the fact that the DMCA would even technically make trying to crack an open source system in the course of improving it an illegal act.
Now, time to sit back and see just how intellectually dishonest the courts can be. They'll have to write some really creative stuff to put big money interests ahead of reason this time. Fortunately, they have an army of recent lawschool graduates dedicated to that very cause.
"Beware he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he deems himself your master."
The problem is that with DRM you have no way to "preserve the means of playing those records" as you say. Simply, because if the license server (or whatever means you have of getting decryption keys) is down (say, the company went under) there is no such means.
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html
some of the issues surrounding these comments is here.
choice quote -- With copyright holders wanting stronger protections and users seeking greater freedom to copy, Congress "looked at those extremes and struck a balance," said Robert Holleyman, chief executive of the Business Software Alliance.
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
Many of these works have been saved by individuals who were not the original producers or copyright holders of the material. When CD players that support a particular flavor of DRM become rare, it will be illegal for me, as an individual to use a device to convert the files to a new format that I can listen to.
Furthermore, the proper way to preserve musical recordings like 78 rpm records is to preserve the means of playing those records. For example. 78 rpm record players are still readily available, they just take some work to find.
If I had a collection of rare audio recordings that happened to be stored on betamax or old 8" floppy disks, I shouldn't have to keep searching for working beta and floppy drives to be able to listen to my recordings over the next 50 years. As an individual, I should be allowed to make copies for my personal use (under Fair Use statutes) so that I can continue to listen to them after the format dies.
As another example, Circuit City's DiVX users had an option that allowed them to "purchase" a DiVX disc -- that is, they could pay a price for unlimited use of a disc. However, in 1999 or 2000 (I don't remember the exact date) a year or so after the service was terminated, the servers that were in charge of permissions were turned off. That means that any DiVX discs that you "purchased" were compeletely unusable. It wouldn't matter if you had 100 working DiVX players, you still can't access the content. Now, imagine that you had some rare, unprofitable music recording that had been made using a similar, failed technology...
Also, while it may be best to listen to analog 78s using 78rpm turntables (as a non-audiophile I'm not as wedded to this, but I'll take your word for it), digitally encoded data won't lose their quality if they are converted, in a lossless manner from technology X to technology Y.
Putting these recordings on P2P networks for anyone to download just denies descendants of the original artists of those recordings their rightful royalties.
That argument is a bit disingenuous in this context. Klawan's comments don't say anything about
- A. putting the recordings on P2P networks, or
- B. Denying royalties.
His examples focus on personal use and sharing them with his daughter's history class -- cases where Fair Use would traditionally be supported. In addition, his comments also raise concerns that recordings whose copyrights have expired may be rendered inaccessible.I'm no conspiracy theory fanatic, but I think that it's _intended to_.
:
When you're making a law against your citizens, there are two options
Either you want to make 'communication' to let people change their minds / unleash their instincts. Then you give it a neat name like 'Patriot Act'.
Or else it's better that the public does not think about it, because if he does not, he'll not notice the effects of the law. Then you give it an ugly name that no newspaper is going to make a big title of. Examples : CBDTPA, SSSCA.... (these are DMCA-like laws).
War doesn't prove who's right, just who's left.
500 year old books can be read and can last for another 500 years. 200 year old pictures can be seen and will probably last that much longer. 100 year old films have deteriorated to the point where most are unviewable and need to be TRANSFERRED to be viewed and preserved. The same will deterioration will happen to CD's eventually. If you couldn't make copies of your CD's, how will your children listen to them if they didn't have any working CD players? What if they didn't know the format that the CD's are in? What if it were illegal for them to fix CD players, figure out how CD players work, and if the CD format were a "trade secret?". The DMCA makes all of that legal for media companies to do.
Unsanctioned distribution of works under copyright is illegal and not neccessary to exercise fair use. Can you say straw man.?
As long as you mention descendants, let me rant on that subject for a short moment: <rant>just because the decendants of Edgar Rice Burroughs et al, are still making millions off of what their grandparents created, doesn't mean that that is what our founding fathers had in mind when they wrote the "promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;" clause into Article I of the Constitution. Note that it says "limited Times" and "Authors and Inventors" and not "forever" and "Authors, Inventors, their heirs and their investors"</rant>
EnkiduEOT
There is no trap so deadly as the trap you set for yourself
-Raymond Chandler, The Long Goodbye
In other words, it looks to me like all this effort is completely irrelevant and merely a way of wasting the dissenters' time. The Library of Congress can decide anything they want about the DMCA and where the limits on its power should be: it won't make a damned bit of difference out here in the real world.
Use 'slashdot stuff' in the subject line in any email you send me if you want to get past the spam filter.
The seventh comment by Todd Colvin is interesting and suggests that technological protection isn't always good for IP owners. It got me wondering about MS Palladium: If Palladium can prevent unauthorized scrutiny of the executable code of a program, then how would anyone know if that program uses patented algorithms, perhaps without the patent owner's approval?
Why not have a limit on the copyright that says that the copyright holder must keep the work available to the public for a reasonable fee or the copyright is void? If worded properly, this would eliminate the captivity of "unpopular" or "unprofitable" works. The holder would either lose their rights, or make the work available to the public.
Having the work in a library would not count as reasonably available.
Creative Spelling Copyright (2002). May use without Persimmons
The "degradation in quality" would be quite severe. If you just point a video camera at a television, you will get massive flickering. To stop the flickering, you need to attach a device to manipulate the video signal. For that device to work, you need to circumvent Macrovision (a violation of the very law in question).
Some day, the camera won't even work. Hollywood is already working with camera manufactures so cameras won't record anything with Hollywood's watermark on it.
If I produce a song and want it freely distributed, what must I do? Anyone thinking that this "DRM thing" won't affect them because they're not an "evil music pirate" or whatnot better think again.
When the content industry-envisioned "DRM world" comes about (where everything is DRM enabled) what do YOU think the default state of the "do not copy bit" is going to be? If your answer is "off", pass me some of what you've been smoking. The only way that DRM would *ever* be effective is if it banned all copying of everything, whether or not you are the owner.
Take video cameras. Sure you could be recording your own smash hit motion picture (in which case the MPAA wants to stop YOU). But what if that DV you're encoding on your computer is actually the latest MPAA-made smash hit, filmed from under your jacket?
How will mommy send her "Baby's First Steps" video to her family then? Simple, she has to prove to someone (an MPAA rep, probably) that the material she wants copyable really does belong to her. Of course, the MPAA representative's time IS money, so they will have to be fairly compensated for the time they spend reviewing the video.
Of course, once its in the hands of the MPAA, all bets are off. Don't be suprised if you get arrested because your independent smash hit was actually a complete copy of a work by an MPAA-subsidiary studio, made 3 hours after they received your video... err, I mean which has been in the works for 3 years.
If you think all of this is bullshit, just take a look at the behavior of the *IAA's now. They're willing to lie (no matter HOW fast, 1 burner is ONE BURNER) to whatever ends they want to get, and they want to get your money.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
I'm no conspiracy theory fanatic, but I think that it's _intended to_.
Has anyone noticed that there only 50 comments there? That out of all that were submitted, those were the only ones ACCEPTED? (who know what the real count is.)
Well, I try not to be too, but I couldn't help get the feeling that this whole comment thing was made to be way more complicated that necessary. First off, the format requirment: in order to figure out what exactly these requirments were, you had to read through most of the 19 page Notice of Inquiry to figure it out. And if you weren't good at reading between the lines, forget it. One simple step - numbering your classes, appeared as just one little blip in the middle of a very legal jargon paragraph. Later, the requirment that a name be on the attachment.
I submitted, and noticed the little warning "Most of the comments submitted thus far do not comply....Comments that do not comply with ALL of the requirements will not be considered." When you click the submit button, up pops a reminder (which I think should have been right out front in the beginning) which reminded of the 5 requirements (name, idenify class, number each class, summary of each class, provide facts). Anyway, mine got rejected. In defense of the LOC, I will say that they did call me at home to let me know of the rejection and that I could re-submit to a different email. Basically, my summary was off, in that I did not start out the ending with "In summary,". I told the guy that I thought their requirments were too steep, and that anyone who took the time to submit should be heard regardless. I mean, how stupid to go through all that effort and not have your voice be heard because you didn't number a paragraph or use the word summary? Again, there are only 50 comments there and that bothers me. Last round 270something were submitted, mostly in essay form which I am sure drove them crazy. But whatever, it is their job to figure out what ails the public, not the publics job to become mini-lawyers just to be able to participate.
In the few moments it took me to read his posting on alterslash, I was appalled at the idea that this thing was rated 5-insightful, considering how many instances of bad logic it exhibits: Art lovers cannot preserve anything under Bono or DMCA, since they are not creators of that content. This RIGHT has been denied, despite constitutional language that puts forth this right. And pointing to one artifact from the past and declaring that it is proof that all worthwhile art has been preserved is just silly. Every historian I've met says old documents are rife with references to other stuff that they'd kill to see, but which has disappeared. That's an opinion. Considering the fallibility of media and the fact that this prevents anyone but an obsessive or enthusiast from experiencing anything created solely on 78's, I say it's a pretty poor opinion. I like old jazz, but not enough to build/maintain an old Victrola (sp?). Do you hear how intellectually elitist you sound? Telling us that we're not worthy of early jazz recordings unless we suffer a bit? Rightful. That's when I lost it. YOU DO NOT HAVE A RIGHT FOR PREVENTING COPIES. WE HAVE A RIGHT TO COPY. YOU HAVE BEEN GIVEN A PRIVILEGE TO CONTROL THE COPYING FOR A CERTAIN AMOUNT OF TIME.
Besides, nobody deserves anything they didn't earn directly. I don't like royalty (as in kings), I am not sure I like huge inheritances, and I sure as hell don't think that anyone's great-grandkids deserve anything special. Based on all the rest of the bad logic, this is when I decided you're a shill. Because that seems so trite. A half dozen of Atwater-esque Big Lies, wrapped up nicely with a 'and I'm on your side.' If you're so for fair use, let's see you argue for it, rather than using tricks and poor logic to try to pollute the pool.