Slashdot Mirror
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...
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.
FoundNews.com - get paid to blog.,
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
you cant be serious.
CNN is operated by those who made the DMCA and those who benefit from its being enforced. CNN has government "interns" working with the story-writers. CNN would never inspire popular debate on a topic that perfectly suits their interests and will go unchallenged as long as it remains out of mainstream media.
-- "Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains." Jean Jacques Rousseau
...because 'civil disobedience of copyrights whenever possible (like people are doing now)' has to date been SO successful in securing less restrictive government policies...
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
...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:
I think civil disobedience of copyrights whenever possible (like people are doing now) is a much more effective way
I guess you mean people should freely steal GPL code and not comply with it then.
Get it straight. Copyright is not a bad thing. Copyright is a good thing that is being twisted and abused to do bad things. We need to end copyright abuse, not copyrights.
A lot of what is opposed doesn't really fall under copyright per se, but under contract law, when you are talking about EULAs that have terrible clauses in them that infringe on basic rights. Copyright is only the means that is often used as an enforcement method for these EULAs.
The DMCA is bad for other reasons, it likely violates due process in regard to the "guilty until proven innocent" stance that ISPs must take when they get a DMCA complaint.
The DMCA anti-circumvention clause violates basic property ownership rights, that are heavily implied in the constitution and in common law.
The other issue with copyrights are their length, and the extensions, as seen in the Lessig case, terms so long that they actually hinder the creation of new works.
None of this points to an inherent problem with copyrights.
Unfortunately, I'm not so sure that this is true in the way you think. There are a lot of "diehard free-marketeers" who don't see excessively strong copyright as being a form of government intrusion. Many of them, in fact, see strong copyright as a preservation of property rights, which they veiw as being the cornerstone of a market economy. If anything, the idea of limiting government intrusion is likely to come out in the form of explicitly allowing copyright holders to hack the systems of alleged thieves, or some similar vigilante-style action.
There's no point in questioning authority if you aren't going to listen to the answers.
Shut your pie hole moron. The US is NOT a Democracy. It is a Representative Republic. Big difference. I weep for the future.
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:
I think civil disobedience of copyrights whenever possible (like people are doing now)...
Right now the number of people engaging in civil disobedience is somewhere between zero and not very many. Civil disobedience is not just a matter of breaking the law and then telling yourself that its really ok because the law is bad. Civil disobedience is breaking the law, telling a policeman that you did it, going to court, getting sentenced, accepting your sentence, and going to prison. It works because it makes it obvious to everyone that reasonable people who otherwise respect the law are not able to accept this particular law. It works because it reveals, in a way that is painfully visible to everyone, how power is being abused to make people abide by a law that is immoral.
Back in the 50's and 60's a lot of whites thought that blacks really didn't mind segregation all that much, and that it didn't involve any real coercion. Civil disobedience made it clear that reasonable and law abiding citizens, white and black, did object to the law quite strongly, and that it was being maintained only by means of coercion.
Let me know when you find a few people who are willing to spend a year - or even a night - in jail for the sake of their fair use rights. Then we can talk about a campaign of civil disobedience.
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
It is the 2-party system that is to blame.
...
Actually don't you mean a one party system? I don't see much difference
between them. They both suck corporate dick.
I would rather lose my right to vote and
Don't worry about it, you already did lose your right to vote.
We don't count the votes in this country, we let the winner's brother decide.
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?
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.
Regarding paragraph one, which details your experience with Congressman Goodlatte. He dismissed you and called you a thief. From this, you conclude that those elected to Congressional seats do not represent you. You say, "You see, they don't care what the actual coders think, they care what corporations and unions' leaders think." I do not think that this is a valid conclusion. You can certainly conclude that Congressman Goodlatte does not agree with you, and that he does not represent your views. But he is just one person. How do you know that all representatives do not care? Perhaps a different senator would echo your views more closely.
Also -- your account is a bit vague. Your rhetorical style seems rather combative. Might you have alienated him by showing up and aggressively presenting your views and then expecting him to agree with you automatically?
The conclusion of your fourth paragraph strikes me as an of unsupported assertion compounded by the same logical error that troubled your judgement of representatives (judging a whole class of people based on your own experiences with a small section of that class). "Invariably political people tend to be scumbags . . . [who] have no real desire or capacity as a general rule to effect positive change." How is this different from the general population? Strike the word "political" from the above sentence. It now reads "Invariably people tend to be scumbags . . . [who] have no real desire or capacity as a general rule to effect positive change." You seem to suggest that politicians (if that is what you mean by "political people") should be held to a higher standard than anyone else. And yet, they are human too. They have failings, and they have flaws.
Turning to the last bit of that sentence, you seem to forget that people constantly disagree on what constitutes "positive change" and how to effect those changes. No change is universally positive; eliminating slavery was good for the slaves, but bad for the slave-owners who depended on their labor. In that case, deciding that the interests of the slaves were more important than those of their masters would seem fairly straightforward. But even that was hotly contested for years. Consider reading the writings of Senator Calhoun, who spoke vigorously in favor of slavery. He proposed basically a whole new political ideology in order to retain an institution that was important to him and a small group of others. You will always find special-interest groups in any political body; as a result, it is essentially impossible to maintain 100% consensus. A dictatorship is the only example I can think of where this is not a problem; because the dictator always agrees with himself, and his vote is the only one that counts. Even then, he'll have people trying to influence him for their own ends.
There is lots more I could say, but this post is getting long. Before I submit, let me turn to your last paragraph. Let me just put in a couple of quotes:
Let me get this straight. First you say that the average person is too dumb to be trusted with a vote. And then you say that our representatives should be selected at random from that same mass of people who are too stupid to vote in a general election, and given a vote in a legislative assembly? Are you sure about that? You'd be giving huge amounts of power to people who are, by your reasoning, incapable of wielding even the lesser power of a vote diluted by thousands of others. Perhaps you should put that one back to bake for a bit more, 'cause it ain't done yet.
Your political system evidently would be controlled by a small minority -- the "intelligent" ones who can "do the right thing" for all the countless others. You say you don't want to be lorded over by an aristocrat; but what I hear is not that you hate aristocrats . . . merely that you want to be the one doing the lording.
You seem very confused. Who said copyright was a "right"? I sure didn't. It's an artifical scheme designed to give authors some control over the distribution of their work.
EULA is not a contract
Last I checked, the only legal basis for most of an EULA is under contract law, debatable as that may be.
Copyrights as EULA enforcement devices is pretty weak, as most of it is covered under contract law, but certain EULAs may allow certain actions that may fall under the realm of copyright law, and violating other contractual clauses of the EULA may terminate the whole thing, including the parts covered by copyright law.
Think site licenses, which also grant rights normally reserved under copyright (i.e. the limited right to copy), in addition to EULA terms. In cases like that, both sets of law must come into play.
And what if someone sent you $100 in an envelope that said on the outside "by opening this I have the right to send thugs over and collect $200 in interest from you and your friends that you share it with" - this is fradulent contract law in any other context.
Your example is sleezy, but not fraudulent. Sleezy companies already do this! Haven't you ever gotten a "check" in the mail, usually for several hundred or thousand dollars, but upon careful inspection, it turns out the check is really a loan with a huge rate of interest? Anyone with good credit can attest to getting these. If the notice that it is loan is not prominent, then it could be argued that it was fraudulent, since both parties were not well informed of the terms of the contract, but if it was printed prominently in a place you would likely see it, then I seriously doubt it would be declared an invalid contract in court.
I'm temped to add IANAL, but if you are getting legal advice from some anonymous guy on the internet, you would probably be stupid enough to just think it was a reference to my homosexuality anyway.
Democracy doesn't work. The average person doesn't have the intellectual maturity and education to wield the political power that is the vote.
Bill Buckley and others have made this claim for years, and it has some merit -- how can illiterates and the uneducated gather enough information to make reasoned choices? It's a prima faciae fact that they can't, they vote based upon criteria that are unconnected or illogical.
The problem with voting prerequisites (literacy, sufficient education, etc) is that they're almost always used by those in power to disenfranchise their opponents, or only enforced selectively to disenfranchise undesirables (blacks, hispanics, italians, irish, laborers, etc). It can even be used over time to further disenfranchise groups that meet the franchise standard -- such as, lets vote to disband public schools. Suddenly blue-collar workers can't afford private education and while they may have the franchise, their children will not since they won't have an education. It becomes a fast track to an aristocracy.
Even if you have a system that screens out the illiterates and the uneducated, how do you know that I, a college graduate, am going to base my vote on something logical? Maybe I base my vote on what my family wants, or I vote for the most attractive candidate or I just plan toss a coin -- even then you're not eliminating people who are educated, literate but just flippant.
The other problem, and its a pretty large one for a fan of Locke, Friedman, et al is the problem of legitimacy. If I'm withheld from selecting those that make the laws I'm expected to obey, why should I accept that government as have ANY power over me? I wouldn't. It would be an illegitimate government.
Which is part of the social contract that allows us to be governed -- the government has to have UNIVERSAL democratic participation to have UNIVERSAL democratic legitimacy.
Unfortunately I think money is undermining our sense of universal legitimacy. Everyone votes, but the financial contributors almost get to vote a second time, after the general election is over, to determine policies, ignoring the voices of those without a lot of money, which has the practical effect of disenfranchising us.
I'm guessing you're not black.
Actually...the DMCA makes it illegal to do what you have a legal right to do. Under current copyright laws you have the ability to make 1 copy of any material that you own as long as it is for personal use only, and makes no mention of the medium for that copy.
Sure there is the potential for abuse in being able to make digital copies of your movies, music, etc...but there's always the potential for abuse no matter what the medium. The same argument was made 20-30 years ago with VHS tapes, back when similar DMCA laws were being proposed, but were subsequently rejected.
Is there any reason that I can't make a copy of the DVDs that I have a purchased and under copyright laws am legally allowed to make? What is wrong with me making a digital copy of it for myself?
NeoChichiri
http://www.neochichiri.net
"How can I help it that Power likes to walk on crooked legs?"
-- Frederich Nietzsche, "Also Sprach Zarathustra"
C|N>K
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.
Actually...the DMCA makes it illegal to do what you have a legal right to do. Under current copyright laws you have the ability to make 1 copy of any material that you own as long as it is for personal use only, and makes no mention of the medium for that copy. Interestingly enough, the provision of the DMCA that prohibits having more than 1 copy of a piece of intellectual property also indirectly makes it illegal for you to run any software on your computer. When you run a program, you are, in effect, creating a second copy of that program in memory. As a result, every time you run a program, you are technically breaking the DMCA.
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
If the problem is that uneducated cannot vote, the solution is not to remove the uneducated from the vote. The solution is to educate everybody.
I miss my rubber keyboard.(Homepage)
The fact that the US does have mandatory universal free education and the fact that a large percentage of adults remains uneducated means that the educational system does not work.
I said the solution is to provide education. The educational system, while it exists, does not seem to provide any education. The US is not the only country that provides a universal educational system that fails to meet its goals, you know.
I miss my rubber keyboard.(Homepage)