Who Owns Your Digital Media?

Ren Bucholz writes "In what was designed to be a "safety valve," the Copyright Office is holding its tri-annual search for exemptions to the DMCA's prohibitions on circumventing access controls. The Electronic Frontier Foundation submitted comments last December that outlined four "classes of works" that should be exempt, including copy-protected CDs, region-coded DVDs, DVDs with unskippable promotional material, and public domain works that are only available on DVD. They are asking people to write in support of the four exemptions that they have proposed. The Copyright Office is only accepting comments until February 19th, so get on it!"

Comments

Go EFF!

[Anonymous Coward]

At least as far as I've gotten which is the CD section (1/4 exemptions). The issue here is this: If I buy a CD with copy protection and it does not work in my cd player (for the purpose of playback) should I be allowed to modify that CD in a way to make it work without risking going to of breaking the law. We all know this can be as simple as using a black marker. In this CD case EFF's argument is that:
* The labels don't tell people which cd's include copy protection.
* A large number of stores won't take the CDs back (accept for an exchange of the exact same cd).
* Many works are only available on CD as vinyl cassette and 8track have died (ok i added the 8track part).
* CD copy protections measures will not ever be 100% fool proof (in providing copy protection AND in ensuring playback on devices that should be able to playback the material)
* The problem is only going to get worse. As this problem occours on any device that is capable of reading multisessions disks. Your DVD Player, Game Console, MP3/CDPlayer, and PC are all affected.

Remember this is specifically under fair use! That is the exemption would only be for modifications that allow playback of the material on a device that was not previously able to.

I think this is common sense. Its certainly not far reaching. Consumers should have the right to buy products and use them for their intended purposes (and maybe not their intended purpose, but that out of the scope of this argument!). Most people 90% or more of america would be really pissed if they found out that cd companies were selling cd's that might not work in their equiptment - and that making a simple modifications to their equiptment or cd to make audio playback work could put them in serious trouble.

If 90+% of the people in the US would support the EFF here, that means an open minded group like slashdot should be around 112% right? :) SO SHOW YOU CARE. Spam the copyright office with support for the EFF and make things happen.

Re:public domain audio and e-text

[waffle zero]

that is why listen to public domain music ( mozart)

The sheet music itself may be public domain, but any performances of them are the owner of the performer and subject to copyright. You could download the sheet music and perform it, but downloading an orchestral recording would be a violation of the law.

Furthermore, some public domain music old enough that it must be transcribed and rearranged to work in a modern orchestra because of variations in the pitches produced by instruments of later eras. This arranged music is also copyrighted by the arranger, who is entitled to compensation for use/purchase.

So if you're looking for some music , may I suggest some Irving Berlin? His work is (relatively) recent and quite upbeat. By now, older performances are probably public domain, as well.