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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!"
Check out http://www.chillingeffects.org.
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. The create technical standards. They certainly don't want a law that will unjustly limit the standards they can create/use.
FoundNews.com - get paid to blog.,
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 I expect the DMCA will end up just like the prohibition did, being repealed because it did more harm than good, and made a joke out of the law.
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
I think most of the people that have gotten in trouble for violations of the DMCA are those who have made something that circumvents the copy protection of something else. Like Dimitry Skylarov and Elcomsoft, who made the software to read Adobe's e-books. They weren't end users, they were the developers. Or 2600 for publishing the DECSS. I would imagine the IEEE would like developers to have more freedom to create new stuff using their standards.
FoundNews.com - get paid to blog.,
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.
Clinton was when it was ratified, I'm pretty sure it was all within his term (although pupae versions of it may have been born before his term, i know it was at least completed within his).
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:
IEEE is an international organization.
IEEE-USA is the US arm of the IEEE.
Fascism starts when the efficiency of the government becomes more important than the rights of the people.
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
H.R. 2281 Digital Millennium Copyright Act
Introduced by Rep Howard Coble (R-NC) and in the Senate by Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT), may they suffer for their perfidy.
7/29/1997:
Referred to the House Committee on the Judiciary...Referred to the Subcommittee on Courts and Intellectual Property [ copyright issues ].
5/22/1998:
Referred jointly and sequentially to the House Committee on Commerce [ technology and internet issues ]
5/22/1998:
Referred jointly and sequentially to the House Committee on Ways and Means [ taxation and revenue issues ]
8/4/1998 2:26pm:
On motion to suspend the rules and pass the bill, as amended Agreed to by voice vote. [ no recorded vote in the House ]
And for the Senate side:
4/30/1998:
Committee on Judiciary ordered to be reported an original measure.
5/14/1998:
Passed Senate with an amendment by Yea-Nay Vote. 99-0. Record Vote No: 137.