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IEEE Wants Congress To Re-Examine DMCA
softsign writes "Reading this story in this month's IEEE The Institute, I found that IEEE-USA quietly published two position papers asking the US Congress to re-examine and/or clarify sections of the DMCA last year. The papers - developed by the organization's Intellectual Property committee - specifically cite concerns over the chilling effects and misuse of the DMCA against researchers and ISPs. Initially, the IEEE was pretty wishy-washy about the DMCA, but it seems that they've been listening to their members and have developed a pretty strong anti-DMCA, pro-innovation stance. Including an enlightened view on Fair Use rights!"
The snowball rolling down the hill towards the DMCA grows larger every day...
Ieee Huh? How about promoting some more pure research while we are at it, instead of doing pocket lining? The DMCA just about kills that as well!
asking the US Congress to re-examine and/or clarify sections of the DMCA last year.
I like that they are asking for clarification. Sure, it would be nice to just have the DMCA go away but clarification would help a lot. The DMCA is a really poorly written law that can be interpreted in lots of ways. If Congress was force to clarify what the DMCA covers a lot of the corporate misuse would not be viable anymore.
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Check out http://www.chillingeffects.org.
...its flammability.
~D:
major publicity needs to be made on this topic man cnnn needs to run headlines on it
i may be confused, but the only IEEE acronym i know of ... doesnt seem like it'd have anything to do with this. I'll assume that its good news, but could someone please fill me in? and if its the only IEEE i know of, do they really have any sort of position to influence this or will it just be brushed aside?
I personally the DMCA is abolished, especially with This Freedom of Speech issues notwithstanding of course. I know this has been said before (by a lot of people), but I actually do make a lot of copies of the CDs etc I own, (I'm a clutz, just broke a CD yesterday, was a CD-R though, thankfully). I expect the DMCA will end up just like the prohibition did, being repealed because it did more harm than good, and made a joke out of the law.
Senator: Wow, there are some really good points in this paper....maybe we should re-examine this DMCA thing...
Secretary: I have a Ms. Rosen on the line. She wants to know if you want the front or the backs of the bills when she wallpapers your house with money.
Senator: Tell her I'll want some toilet paper as well. These position papers leave me dry and chaffed.
Okay, this is a troll account, but I'll bite.
Consider this : what if the DMCA was only a way to buy time ? They needed time to compute the impact of internet access to their existing business model. Damn, some customers of mine oppose arguments stronger than theirs to delay migration and observe the behavior of the new system.
Don't be fooled. They don't want a revolution, and they never did. They are just buying time and brainstorming.
'Cause they already did a mistake. Remember the new economy ? Now they wait and watch and prepare their next move.
Fair enough.
Initially, the IEEE was pretty wishy-washy about the DMCA, but it seems that they've been listening to their members and have developed a pretty strong anti-DMCA, pro-innovation stance. Including an enlightened view on Fair Use rights!"
...which they quietly published in two position papers. Pardon me for being a wet blanket, but I'll wait until some organization makes the case by loudly publishing a position paper before I start cheering.
GMD
watch this
I really doubt that Congress, who won't listen to the majority of its citizens, will bother to listen to a collection of scientists that don't provide any money to their campaign coffers.
After all, the RIAA and MPAA can probably outspend the IEEE by about 500 to one or more.
I hate to be too cynical, but this seems to be a lot of sound and fury, signifying nothing to anyone who isn't a geek.
I'm glad to finally see a big dog enter the fight. Don't get me wrong, the EFF and Slashdot community are great, but they have a tendancy to allow their bark to be louder than their bite.... So having the IEEE peeps start in on this is definately a good thing.
Ave Molech Setting
Coupled with the Unpatriotic Act the DMCA is a blueprint for the end of our country. Organizations like IEEE should be taking a much stronger stance against the DMCA. They should have no profit motive and should be charged with the duty to futher computing, not corprate greed. Granted the individuals who make up the various standards commities on the IEEE have shareholders to pretend to answer to, but the core mission of the IEEE should be offended by the blatent Un-American nature of the DMCA and take a stand, just as every true patriot should take a stand against the so called Patriot Act.
It's good to see respected organizations like the IEEE speaking out against the problems of the DMCA. If we can keep the pressure on, the politicians will not be able to ignore the populace.
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In line with its past positions regarding shrink wrap licenses overriding user rights in the Copyright Act that are the result of hard-fought compromises in Congress, IEEE-USA feels that all user rights in digital works, as well as other user rights provided by intellectual property law, must not be alterable by a shrink wrap, click wrap, or similar license.
So if I am reading this correctly, that means that there can't be a EULA clauses that says that I can not make a back up or transfer a DRMed file.
Now if only there is something that also covers EULA changes and clauses like "we have the right to reword and fine tune this EULA to what ever screws you and benefits us the most."
There is still the legality issue of EULAs but I doubt they will want to do anything about it.
So who is really writing the laws here... Hmmm could it be the business that profit from them?
NOOOO our congress would not pass a law just because they got wined and dined enough would they?
Who was in office when dmca passed?
The problem isn't the DMCA, but that the era of copyrights is over and people, especially in the entertainment industry, can't deal with it. I think civil disobedience of copyrights whenever possible (like people are doing now) is a much more effective way. It will force change from the outside and not the inside. It will get the problem at the root.
Come on, I'm sick of all this rationalization for piracy and theft on slashdot. The IEEE is asking Congress to reexamine or clarify the DMCA. Sounds to me like they are using Congress as a device to circumvent the provisions of the DMCA. The DMCA is crystal clear that such activity is illegal.
It's just stupid. Get a life.
There is some irony in the IEEE's name: "The Institute for Electrical and Electronic Engineers" also includes computer engineers, but the computers engineers have coded themselves out of the name. Thanks to legacy issues in source code (e.g. #include ieee_std_80211a.h) in C and VHDL, the computers engineers would have a heck of a time going back and changing the code if the IEEE changed its name to include computer engineers. It would become confusing to have one name but the legacy header files another name.
Beep. Boop. Beep. You have questions. I have answers and your home address.
After all, the RIAA and MPAA can probably outspend the IEEE by about 500 to one or more.
Don't be so sure.
The IEEE not only has a large number of fairly wealthy engineers, but it also has some very wealthy corporate members such as Intel, and the rest of the semiconductor industry. Chips are in everything. I know I have a few in my car, all my media and computer equipment, my mobile phone, my cordless answerphone, my watch, and my credit card. These people don't want to have to spend money on adding a chips to prevent piracy. Especially when they know it isn't going to work.
Perhaps someone else has made this analogy before, but I've never seen it.
I was just thinking of the similarities of today's copyright infrigement and corporate behemoths exploting the working class with the old day's mills and bosses controlling labor. Basically in both instances people became fed up with the situation. Back then, people started to protest and organize unions, while at the same time the corporations and bosses would pass out black-lists of violators and make a fuss when people wanted fair pay. Today we have file-swapping and MP3s becuase we are sick of paying too much money for something; things (MP3s in particular) where the original author doesn't profit so much as the recording label. Again, the corporations are making a fuss, and instead of black-lists, they are suing the pants off anyone they can find.
Now, I doubt that the government will legalize file-sharing like they protected unions, but I hope something just as amiable is devised for our current situation. Anyone new that decides to fight is a step in the right direction.
that the blighters in Congress would do the job right in the first place. Then RE-examination would probably not be necessary. Instead they did the job they were paid for. And I don't mean their salaries.
Do anon cowards always get rated ZERO?
If so, Slashdot sucks!
IEEE Wants Congress To Re-Examine DMCA
IEEE? Isn't that Microsoft's new browser?
Internet Explorer Extended Embrace?
Opinions on the Twiddler2 hand-held keyboard?
Two years ago I brought basic concerns about misuse of patent law and the DMCA to my Congressman, Goodlatte (R-VA). He said that I was either a thief or advocated stealing because I opposed his bill and that a lot of technical people did too. You see, they don't care what the actual coders think, they care what corporations and unions' leaders think.
Stop acting like Congress represents you. It gets auctioned off every year and CFR isn't going to fix it. It is the 2-party system that is to blame. Even if you outlawed bribery on the pain of death under our current system you'd see no meaningful change. It is because only the best looking and/or most ruthless people get into office.
I'm a CS student and a regular voter and supporter of the LP and 85% of its positions (I only disagree on its espionage and immigration policies, I support the CIA and believe immigration should be heavily restricted). I was talking the other day with probably the only girl in our department who genuinely "gets it" with coding. She's better than most of the guys and we were talking about politics and she said agreed that universal democracy is a bad idea. She said that most of the women she knows that voted for Clinton in 92 did so because he was the sexiest candidate and she said that in her opinion such idiots should be disenfranchised.
Most geeks don't understand political people. I have been around enough of them and have been drug into political conversations enough to know exactly how they think. Invariably political people tend to be scumbags. They practically get off on social and political discussions and yet they have no real desire or capacity as a general rule to effect positive change.
I am a semi-Stalinist Socialist-turned-Libertarian. I learned from history that only **one** system of government works for a long time and that's a Liberal republic. Liberalism is the key to the salvation of the human race and that's what both conservatives and leftists cannot understand. The Liberalism of Locke, Friedmon and co. is an experiment in true civilization. Stop bitching about how Bush and co. undermine democracy. Fuck democracy. You want to see real democracy unleashed on a nation? Read up on Socrates' last days on this Earth. The summaray execution of Socrates by committee for his beliefs is the true face of democracy. It is as vile and vicious as any communist or fascist government that has ever existed. Be concerned about your natural rights, the rights that are inherent to your being a human being such as your right to own property, speak freely, defend yourself and be secure in your home and person. I would rather live under a benevolent dictatorship such as a platonic republic that respects my rights than a democratic system that lets "the people" get whatever they want.
Democracy doesn't work. The average person doesn't have the intellectual maturity and education to wield the political power that is the vote. I would rather lose my right to vote and know that my representative truly is a peer than have an aristocrat lord over me like I'm a sheep that needs to be herded. Excuse the hell out of me, Congress, but I know more about computers than all of you combined. If our representatives were chosen at random from the bourgiouse then we'd have representatives who could actually relate to us and would see us as equals. We'd also have a system where they don't have to take shit off of us or special interests and can do the right thing. Choose them at random from the bourgiouse, give them one term in office and if they take bribes lynch them from the nearest tree in DC.
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Which is not much. Consider their record
on the unpopular impelentations of the
non-immigrant guest worker bills under Clinton.
The voice of labor is not heard in Congress.
...the blatant Un-American nature of the DMCA and take a stand, just as every true patriot should take a stand against the so called Patriot Act.
These are two very unnecessary bills passed by a technologically ignorant (in the case of the DMCA) and shortsighted (in the case of the Patriot Act) legislature.
I personally don't understand the benefit of either act. IAONAP, but as far as I can tell there was no evidence that the existing laws were inadequate, in either case. I do believe both the DMCA (in its current incarnation) and the Patriot Act (ESPECIALLY the Patriot Act) are chipping sizeable chunks away at civil liberty. One of these needs to die before it gets worse.
~D:
Just get congress to pass a law saying that taking things from you is not stealing, and all of a sudden the "rationalizin for piracy and theft" as you call it will be the least of your problems! Calling the law-making body a device to circumvent laws is like calling a key a device to circumvent locks. It's Congress's JOB to decived whether or not thee provisions of the DMCA is to remain law or not.
As long as the IEEE's request is accompanied by a check (preferably in the $100K range), they shouldn't have any problem at all getting someone to listen.
...soon be declared a "terrorist organization" for daring to oppose the DMCA.
DMCA won't be examined neither clarified, there are too many interests involved in keeping the law the way it is.
There's no way to beat RIAA/MPAA lobby, I can't believe that IEEE have enough money to buy more congressmen than they. So we'll have to wait until RIAA/MPAA find out that the world has changed and decides to adapt to the new reality (just like we all have to do in our lives).
-=-=-=-=
I know life isn't fair, but why can't it ever be un-fair in MY favor!?
...how much they were bribed to pass it into law.
~Brian
IEEE-USA quietly published two position papers asking the US Congress to re-examine and/or clarify sections of the DMCA last year
Actually, there are three papers:
Why don't you give me a Congress who is somewhat familiar with technology? Anyone have any information on the committee(s) this bill went to?
~D:
Beleive me, Michael Powell is the last person you want fighting for your freedom of expression. Michael Powell has been behind the Corporatization of news for 2 decades. He's repealed valuable laws preventing news monopolies, for example, he has allowed one company to control multiple outlets in cities. I.E. Murdoch controlling the LA news. Clear channel owes a lot to this bastard, he's no friend of mine. -js
"Gee.. been working on this for hours now with no problems at all on my Windows box.... just a couple more minutes and I can save it and.... [BSOD]... IEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!"
The
More and more I'm coming to believe that the phrase "Congress is bought" should be read "it's easier to whine than to act."
Sure, you could act to create change, but why risk it? If you actually found out that you could change the law, that would almost obligate you to act! And then when would you have time to read Slashdot?
I have stood on the shoulders of greatness and lifted myself to even greater heights.
Often times news such as this creates only slight interest, as the war against the DMCA has not yet seen a complete victory. But is not each battle won in a war indeed still a victory? Should we not still celebrate this small step? Our cries of satisfaction over that which we approve are indeed just as important as our groans of disgust over that which we disapprove (which we seem to be much more willing to display). For you see, this is more than just encouragement amongst us geeks; it piques the curiosity of others, for they shall wonder why we rejoyce as we do. Not all, but surely some, shall investigate, and many shall join our cause. And our cry shall become louder.
Thus I encourage you to join me in whooping, hollering, and just plain happily ranting about how this wonderful event when in the accompanyment of others. Believe it or not, in doing so you are helping to win yet another battle.
http://mediagoblin.org/
I agree with a lot of what you have said. I only use .NET for programming in good ol' Visual C++ and if it were up to me I'd still be using VS 6.0, C# is marketting babble that I have no plans of even wasting my time looking into, but I find a lot of your rantings laughable.
To count on the "SPIRIT of computing" to advance the technology of computer software is scary. If I'm going to use online banking or undergo computerized surgery, the last thing I'd want is software written by some hACKERz that they wrote for the "fun" of it. Give me a break!
The idea of depending on software supported by an underground network geeks in basements scares the hell out of me. Anyone who can't manage to get paid for at least 40 hours of kicks a week in software engineering has something wrong with them.
Sorry dUdE, I'm a software engineer and the last thing I'd want to do is work for free. I'm sorry, but I find these "open source" nirvana arguments as laughable the dreams of a socialist-eutopia became in the 20th century.
Have you not realised yet, that the intention of these bills is to restrict civil liberty? That they benefit the capitalist corporations and not the citizens at large is the whole point of these bills. Realise this and you're half way to becoming a free man again.
Uhh... all three of these are referenced in the original post.
Read the story on Samba-TNG at -1. There's plenty there. /troll
...the time for position papers was BEFORE this lunacy was passed as legislation. Crying about it quietly or loudly makes ZERO difference now.
There is another IEEE-USA IPC position statement relevant to this discussion that is on the general IEEE-USA position statements page but somehow is not on the IPC-only page. It is at http://www.ieeeusa.org/forum/POSITIONS/copycontrol systems.html
Yeah. This is one of the reasons I'm thinking of majoring in Poli Sci. I would love to take the system down from the inside. :)
99-0?! Hrm... I guess it doesn't matter WHICH senator I write to then does it? :p
~D:
If the court rules the dmca unconstitional, will the ruling prevent brodcasters from using the proprietary code built into all our tv sets?
"How can I help it that Power likes to walk on crooked legs?"
-- Frederich Nietzsche, "Also Sprach Zarathustra"
C|N>K
I believe that people would sober up very quickly if they had the power of a legislator. I think most Americans would also have the basic sense to tell John Q. Weasle from the Whee Cheatum and Howe lobby group to fuck off. I should rephrase my previous comment. I think most Americans simply don't have the desire to push for change because they think they. I also think many of them are not observant enough to see through politicians' bullshit. If people could have seen Bush's political goals in 1999 I doubt he'd be in office today. They just like the sound of "compassionate conservatism" and went with it. They never put two and two together with what "compassionate conservatism" really is. It's a pseudo-fascist system. My congressman is an asshole to most of the people that disagree with him because he can be, he runs unchallenged. There was no other name on the ballot for God's sake.
The solution is not a total elimination of the democratic process at the federal level, but its marginalization. There are other things that should be done to add checks and balances.
Ultimately what we need is a system where John Q Citizen doesn't need to worry about what his government is doing. This could be easily accomplished if we'd abide by the US Constitution but that'd get rid of all of the free bread and circus. It's a very tricky situation. I worry that we're not damned if we do and damned if we don't.
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My eyes! The goggles do nothing!
Ummm...how do I get the other half?
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
I know the problem with this law is simply that Joe Blow, can not even spell intellectual property law. (can I?) There is not going to be a major outcry aginst this law from anyone other than professionals. It is definately a good thing that the ivy leaugers are now on the side against it. Having the "hackers" (CNN's definition here) aginst a law is one thing, having a major, respected institution take a stance aginst it's current form is quite another thing entirely.
My UID is prime and so is this number: 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0.
As DCMA has cost my business efficiency, I add a .001 % DCMA Surcharge to invoices. Its an instutionalized wealth transfer scheme, I tell those who ask. This year it will be higher.
becomes obsolete. unless the government forces manufacturers to support their products indefinately and provide FREE replacements for all damaged or lost media, the DMCA is a violation of our rights. i say "our" rights even while i live in canada because US policy & corporate muscle carries over to nearly every developed nation. we get the same copy protected cd's in canada, levies on our cd-r's to pay the recording companies, etc...
kudos to the IEEE, finally a legitimate & recognized voice behind a legitimate argument. lets face it, when the US gov't looks at computer users as a group, we're all 50 years their siblings & a bunch of punks.
- tensions in our lives that are attacking our minds, unite themselves together to make our consciousness blind - op'ivy
the core mission of the IEEE should be offended by the blatent Un-American nature of the DMCA and take a stand
Errr - the IEEE is an international organisation - hence the 'I' in the name.
So the 'core mission' of the IEEE is to promote the International aspects of standardisation etc.
For issues purely pertaining to one specifice country ther are regional groups. For the US this is IEEE-USA, and its this group that is raising the discusion papers.
Forgive me as a UK outsider but the US normally takes a very dim view of International organisations that try to influence its domestic policy - cf current discussion the UN or the Kyoto agreements.
Are you really calling for an Non-US organisation to define what US Patriotism is and isn't?
The IEEE will always be wishy washy as it has to deall with all countriee - the region groups such as IEEE-USA need to campaign on country specific issues.
I might agree with you that the main IEEE may need to take a stand on the way some elements of the US are trying to extend the reach and use of the DMCA outside of US territory, such as happened in the Elcomsoft case. However even here it is probably a compaign that would be more succesful if carried out by the American members of the IEEE.
It occurred to me that the DMCA could readily be used by thieves.
Scenario is this. I am at a bank, where we have account and credit card numbers (among other info) that are themselves sensitive. If someone steals enough of this info, it can be used for identity theft in addition to normal fraud, causing grief and loss for anyone hit by it...not just this bank.
To discourage this we have internal controls but also monitor communications for some of these numbers (done with the aid of automation since we don't want a human prying into everyone's messages). This has worked decently.
However, breaking even a fairly simple technological "protection measure", which our monitoring gear would normally be set to look at, could be construed as breaking the DMCA prohibition on circumventing protective measures. In other words, someone composes a message (and messages are copyrighted at birth like anything else) and rot13 encodes it, then sends to someone, protected by this protective measure. The account number checkers require the message to be decoded. But the DMCA says that it is illegal to circumvent a technological measure, with no reference to why one is circumventing it. What to do?
The principle is broader than this, in that pretty much any "technological measure" could be used to encode messages...ads, spam, pornography, warez, you name it...and provide a means whereby it could be hidden from inspection by filter automata. While I doubt that a lawsuit by someone mailing "warez" encoded like this against a maker of a content filter would get far, such a lawsuit by a spammer or advertiser to prevent inspection of their content by other than the designated recipients (however many millions of those there might be!) is conceivable. The law is so poorly written that I suspect it might even succeed. Once the precedent gets set, the advertiser can of course become much more annoying...
I thought Civil Engineering was the mother of all engineering?
I shouldn't be telling you this, but it's all about placement and relevance. If you say something insightful, informative or funny in a high-visibility thread on page 1, you're more likely to get modded up. However, if you reply to a troll on page 4, you'll always get a zero. (Nobody reads comments on page 4 unless they have the filter set to +5...)
Now, with that said I'll reply to your main point. Unfortunately this is how politics in the US works. Big businesses give millions of dollars in "campaign contributions" to senators and representatives, and they also pay lobbyists millions of dollars to help push their agenda. There's close to a billion-dollar industry whose express purpose is to help ensure the creation of legislation that maintains the unfair advantage big business has over individuals and small businesses. (Hint: That's how the DMCA got passed in the first place!)
Perhaps it would have helped if there was someone standing there explaining why the laws are bad for the public? If you or I really wanted to do something about the problem, we could go get a part time job in DC and spend half of our time lobbying for the public. (Yeah right, who wants to do that...)
Anyway, the point is that as individuals we do not have the resources to successfully counter-lobby the big businesses. Our only viable option is to wait for bad laws to pass and then try to raise public awareness of how these laws are bad for society.
Carry on.
... and some sense... bucked this legal abortion. Now, if we can just get rid of Fritz Hollings (I live in South Carolina, so I'm doin' what I can) and his ilk, maybe we can return this Country to its citizens. It's actually past time.
Uhm... Isn't the DCMRA already taking a stand on this front?
Rather coincidentally, just the other day, at the Borders Cafe (oh yeah, I can rhyme!), I found and read an article about the DMCRA in the current issue of 2600 magazine. The article took the opinion that the DMCRA put Fair Use back into the equation and stated that it specifically makes exemptions for the cases of scientific research and other legitimate uses.
The article went on, with minimal explanation, to state that the DMCRA reestablishes the Betamax standard with regard to the digital world. Being unfamiliar the Betamax or any related standard, myself, has anyone else an explanation just what that means?