Slashdot Mirror
EFF Report: Four Years Under the DMCA
kylus writes "The EFF has a pretty nice article entitled "Unintended Consequences." Basically, it reviews the last four years of life under the law, and how use of the "anti-circumvention" clauses have been used to stifle innovation, censor free speech, and threaten academic/scientific research. It ends with a conclusion most on /. have been dicussing for ages: "Four years of experience with the "anti-circumvention" provisions of the DMCA demonstrate that the statute reaches too far, chilling a wide variety of legitimate activities in ways Congress did not intend."" You've joined the EFF, right?
Electronic Frontier Finland
Electronic Frontier Canada
Electronic Frontiers Australia
Electronic Frontier Ireland
Electronic Frontier Sverige
Electronisk Forpost Norge
Electronic Frontiers Italy
Executive Summary: Any measure for stopping spam must ensure that all non-spam messages reach their intended recipients.
And anti-spam blacklists, such as the MAPS RBL (Mail Abuse Prevention System Realtime Blackhole List, the most popular), result in a large number of Internet service providers (ISPs) surreptitiously blocking large amounts of non-spam from innocent people. This is because they block all email from entire IP address blocks--even from entire nations. This is done with no notice to the users, who do not even know that their mail is not being delivered.
That is exactly the situation. Large ISPs such as AOL and email providers like M$ Hotmail all practice this. The result is that mail from smaller ISPs is blocked. How convienent for the larger ISPs. No dial up box may send mail and often the upstream smtp provider is blocked as well.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
I can't say exactly which laws are responsible for the changes, but it seems the DMCA certainly plays a role in the changes to my daily life.
Work - I work as a new media designer for not-for-profits.
Ex. 1 - Client wants still image from *their* DVD.
Problem: Disallowed - copy protection measures.
Solution - find a quasi-legal application on the interent.
Ex. 2 - Client wants 7 hours of VHS transferred to DV. Solution: pass signal thru DVcam to Mac
Problem: Disallowed - copy protection
(It is never easy to really know whether something is impossible for technical reasons or due to intentional disabling for copy protection reasons.)
Solution: copy 7 hours to DV tape; capture 7 hours to Mac
Cost: doubles
Ex. 3 - Client wants their TV commercial spliced into other ads for 'internal' use - to show the ad in context.
Solution - No. Turn down job. Advise against. Not in this climate.
Ex. 4 - User's Mac frozen from attempting to play music disc.
Solution: force restart while holding down mouse key
Cost: User's work lost.
New workplace music policy: dunno. No CDs/music discs? Communal MP3 library, ripped by technicians? Resulting network impact?
This could easily get to be a long list.
The point is that small creative businesses which use 'prosumer' gear increasingly find that they can't easily accomplish simple jobs. It is becoming increasingly difficult to purchase equipment (crippled functions are rarely highlighted). For example, we bought a MiniDisc recorder for interviews. What if we wanted to actually use the interviews for something?
A growing number of digital devices (TV tuners, DVD players, audio recorders, etc) only have analog outputs for copy protection.
Media - media formats like DVD, or MiniDV tapes are arbitrarily smaller than their 'commercial' equivilents. We pay taxes on media. In Canada, $100 will be added to the price of a $600 iPod if media taxes are raised and extended to their proposed level. In the US and Canada, we pay taxes on audio and video tapes, recordable CDs and DVDs, and we can basically look forward to taxes on all storage mediums. (In Canada, it's just more obvious than in the US.) Taxes appear to by calculated by size. Next time you buy a 250Gb hard drive, consider how much money is going to the RIAA and MPAA. (I don't know how I am affected in the UK, because apparently I lost my copying rights when I moved here. I don't think we're allowed to copy anything; not even TV - there is no 'fair use' in the UK.)
Fun - I do the same kind of stuff for fun - for my friends.
Like work, it's an exercise in frustration. The transition from analog to digital is about high-end production. Final output will probably be analog for the forseeable future.
Entertainment -
CDs - The proposition that I'm going to move back to listening to CDs after having tasted MP3s is terribly misguided. I didn't think it would affect the kind of music I listen to (underground hiphop) - it has. Buy CD. Get home. No CD logo. Copy protection chart. May not play on Mac. Rips fine. But why is it distorted? Is it just really bassy? Is it from copy protection? Is it worth it? (No.)
DVD player - it was free. It was useless.
Problem - Analog SCART ouput only. No SCART on TV.
Solution - Route through VCR.
Problem - Disallowed. Copy protection.
Solution - Give DVD player to mother-in-law
Digital TV tuner - digital TV is 'computerized' TV. It's Mpeg2. From camera to editing to broadcast to reception, it's all digital - just like my computer and it's digital display. DVB, the standards body has settled on Firewire as the digital connection standard. At the moment in the UK, there are no devices with digital outputs. Perhaps once the Macrovision is implemented on our digital TV, we will get digital outputs. This just means it that our computer can't replace the TV the way it has replaced the stereo and DVD player because the display is digital LCD. As with everything, it can be done. But it's expensive and thus far, the results are barely viewable. (It's a complicated problem, but the point is that it would be much simpler were it not for copyright concerns. I know, it is also about the predominance of analog displays and who is subsidizing the TV tuners - satellite and cable companies, Tivo, etc.)
I don't know how much of this is attributable to the DMCA, but I am constantly challenged by changes over the past 4 years. Sure, you can get around virtually any roadblock with analog to digital convertors and quasi-legal black boxes, software, and by accepting loss of quality. But it's expensive, time-consuming, and frustrating.
Previously, one avoided buying certain 'cripple-ware' brands. Now it seems everything is 'cripple-ware' and the question is whether to buy anything at all. Unfortunately, the post-dotcom-bubble, post-911 economic downturn will overshadow the economic cost of copy-protection hysteria.