Lofgren Introduces BALANCE Act to Modify DMCA

Infonaut writes "Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D - CA) introduced H.R. 1066, The Balance Act. It seeks to clarify 'that America's historic principles of fair use - protected under Section 107 of the Copyright Act - apply to analog and digital transmissions.' Apparently Lessig is on board, as are several associations and other organizations. If you like what you see, encourage your representative to support the bill."

Comments

What happened to the DCFA?

[archnerd]

Lofgren introduced the Digital Choice & Freedom Act last term. What ever happened to it? This seems like basically the same thing/

Re:What happened to the DCFA?

[Sarcazmo]

A lot of bills die a quiet death. If the subcommittee fails to report a bill to full committee, then it's effectively dead for the year.

Re:What happened to the DCFA?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah, shit. I left out a couple of words.

Committee for the
Liberation and
Integration of
Terrifying
Organisms and their
Rehabilitation
Into
Society

Re:What happened to the DCFA?

[Tokerat]

Let's not leave out the Reducing America's Vounerability to Ecstasy (RAVE) Act. Way to stereotype, Congress. I'll make sure I vote real careful next time.

Re:What happened to the DCFA?

[Alsee]

I think some readers thought you were making a joke. RAVE Act. As far as I know it hasn't passed yet, but they're working on it.

-

Usefull Information?

[robi2106]

A list of US House Representatives
(remember it is always best to write snail mail to your reps. Email is trashed to easy.
http://www.house.gov or here Write your Rep

And here are the Senators

Senate Listings

Re:Usefull Information?

[mrpuffypants]

never hurts to call them either, kinda hard to ignore phones ringing off the hook

Re:Usefull Information?

[PancakeMan]

Actually, the EFF says that, post 9/11, email is better than snail mail for this sort of thing. The delay resulting from security checking makes snail mail, in their opinion, a less useful option than email and faxes for activism.

Re:Usefull Information?

[nbanman]

I work in a Congressional district office (Earl Blumenenauer, 3rd District OR), and while I don't speak for other Senator's and Congressman's offices, it doesn't matter whether you call, write, or send an email. Either way, your comments get categorized by the same person, and I don't think we let any slip. Well technically, we have a webform rather than email for constituent comments. If you do want to send snailmail, send it to your District office rather than Washington DC. Mail gets through much faster over here, and it ends up in the same place. Believe me, it's just as easy to misplace snailmail as electronic mail. And not that we would wilfully trash constituent letters, if we wanted to I don't think it would be much of a challenge. Calling is effective. It does take up alot of our time and lets the entire staff know that it's a hotbutton issue (even the people who don't answer the main line have to hear it). Remember to be polite, even if you don't support the representative's stance.

p2p also

[geeklawyer]

clearly a clued up congressional representative. See also her remarks on p2p here

" Illegal file-sharing is a major problem. But we should not create one problem to solve another."

She'd get my vote...

we'll, if I had one over there...

Balance Act

[Entropy248]

So, let me see if as a fourth-year pre-law undergrad I can translate this from legalese into something resembling English...

1. Let's add the following to the DMCA:
2. You are allowed to back up the stuff you've bought legally, as long as you don't perform it or infringe on the rights of the owners by selling it
3. You cannot sell media covered by the DMCA with a non-negotiable license because said license is unenforceable as of now.
4. You can do whatever you need to do in order to watch the media, as long as you don't go against #1.
5. If you don't have a way to see/hear/whatever the media is, you can do what you need to in order to see/hear it as long as you don't sell/perform it

Is that about right?

Re:Balance Act

[Flower]

Number 3 is the kicker imho and what will probably kill this bill.

By combining digital first sale with the ability to crack the copy protection it is possible to forsee a new type of P2P infrastructure. A digital second-hand store (dss) if you will.

I buy my digital music and simply break the copy protection as this is legal now. I then participate in the dss. I only keep the songs I am currently using on my computer, any I don't want at the time I make available for upload. The program then deletes the song after someone uploads it. Of course, I can select from a pool of available songs.

Another way. I could take my digital copy and run it through some company's cracking program and then sell it to them for time on their service. The program audits the transaction. They keep track of the 2nd hand music they've gotten and only give out whatever many copies of the song they have in inventory. Again, I listen to said song and when done send it back to the dss.

I also wonder if I could do this with steaming audio. Basically I lock a copy of the song for my use and then unlock it when I'm done and want another song.

Would that be legal?

EFF's info on contacting legislators

[Kaimelar]

The Electronic Frontier Foundation has a good page with info on contacting legislators (and tips on how to be most effective at getting your opinion heard by them) at http://www.eff.org/congress.

Not whorin', just informin'. ;-)

A sample letter to your representative

[TTop]

Dear Congressman/Congresswoman,

I would like to encourage you to support Representative Zoe Lofgren's "Balance Act" (H.R. 1066). This act seeks to balance the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) and clarify consumers fair use rights for digital content.

Like Representative Lofgren, I believe that "Contrary to the intent of Congress, the DMCA has been used to legitimize...control over consumer uses. It's been used to prohibit lawful users from circumventing technical restrictions, even to pursue their fair use rights."

I believe that Fair Use is an important issue that's been overlooked in the debate, and that the long term effects of the DMCA on Fair Use are detrimental to society. Passage of this Act will be a boon preserving the Fair Use rights of your constituents.

Sincerely,

-----

Re:Let's keep the rights of the artists in mind he

[Anonymous Coward]

As I recall, the guys that made Thief made next to nothing on Thief 2 (and are no longer in business as a result),

That's because their publisher (Eidos) never paid them their royalties for Thief 2. Looking Glass went under before they were due. Eidos was having its own financial difficulties at the time (overfunding Daikatana didn't help there), and was unable to rescue them.

Let's remember the biggest trampler of those rghts

[elmegil]

Let's remember that the RIAA and the member studios are among the biggest tramplers of the "rights of the artists". Go back and re-read Courtney Love's account of the finances involved in any non-megastar artist getting paid for their work. Go back and re-read Janice Ian's cogent points about how once she started allowing downloads of her music she made MORE money, not less. Think back to how it is that most (obviously not all) artists make most of their real cash from touring and playing live, and that record releases are largely a way to drum up interest in those live performances. This is especially true when artists make a microscopic fraction of the $18 it costs to buy their CD at most retail outlets (again, go re-read Courtney Love's statements on the matter).

As for software, honestly I can't address that other than to say you're the first person I've ever heard claim that Thief 2 was so heavily pirated it ran them out of business. They certainly didn't claim that. I certainly bought my copy legitimately. What more do you want?

Most people are reasonable and law abiding and recognize the value of paying others for the entertainment they provide. If the value proposition of the entertainment was good, piracy would only infect the segments of society that either 1) simply can't afford much of anything (who arguably aren't likely to have internet access anyway) or 2) would be pirating for the fun of it regardless.

Me, I think that being able to download music, check it out, THEN decide if I want to buy it is a Good Thing[tm]. Given that ClearChannel controls so much of the radio market that I hardly hear anything I give a damn about on the airwaves any more (to get me excited to go buy stuff), and given that the labels as a general rule are releasing so much crap, and given that the resale value of a CD is insignificant (I'm lucky to get $5 for a new CD I bought for $18 and listened to once? Insane), I don't see any other avenue to go through. All the MP3's I've downloaded fall into three broad categories:

• things I thought I might like, but didn't (the new Massive Attack, the new Tori Amos both qualify here)
• things I thought I might like, and did, and then went and bought the cd
• things that I'd buy if they were available from the labels, but they don't deign to release (e.g. The Boomtown Rats _Fine Art of Surfacing_)

None of these is a case where I am stealing from the artist. If anything, the labels, by refusing to release older work that is still of interest to me, is denying the artists the chance to make more royalties from me. If I were forced to spend $13 net on albums I didn't like, I just wouldn't spend anything. That's not a value proposition I can live with, and the industry ought to think hard about how much less they'd be making if everyone made that judgement.

Write the correct people

[jfmiller]

This bill has been refered to the Judiciary Committee and from there will most likely be sent to the Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet, and Intellectual Property

Everybody ought to lick the stamp and write there Rep. but if you vote in the districts of any of the following it is especially important.

Thank you,
JFMILLER

F. James Sensenbrenner, Jr. (R-WI) [Chair]
Lamar Smith (R-TX) (Sub Committee chair)
John Conyers, Jr (D-MI) * [Ranking Democrat]
Howard L. Berman (D-CA) *
Henry J Hyde (R-IL) *
Richard Boucher (D-VA) *
Elton Gallegly (R-CA) *
Robert C Scott (D-VA)
Bob Goodlatte (R-VA)*
Jerrold Nadler (D NY)
William L. Jenkins (R-TN) *
Melvin L. Watt (D-NC)
Spencer Bachus (R-AB) *
Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) * [Bill's Sponcer]
Mark Green (R-WI)*
Sheila Jackson-Lee (D-TX)
Rick Keller (R-FL)*
Maxine Waters (D-CA) *
Melissa Heart (R-PA) *
Martin T Meehan (D-MA) *
Mike Pence (R-IN) *
William Dalahunt (D-MA) *
Jeff Flake (R-AZ)
J. Randy Forbes (R-VA) *
Robert Wexler (D- FL) *
John Carter (R-TX) *
Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) *
John Hostettler (R-IN)
Anthony D. Weiner (D-NY) *
Marsha Blackburn (R-TN)
Adam B Schiff (D-CA)
Chriss Cannon (R-UT)
Linda T. Sanchez (D-CA)
Steve King (R-IA)
Howard Coble (R-NC)
Steve Cabot (R-OH)
Tom Feeney (R-FL)
Chris Cannon (R-UT)
* -- Member, Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet, and Intellectual Property

Re:Let's keep the rights of the artists in mind he

[Aleatoric]

I don't argue that kazaa, et.al. are not a part of the problem, merely that they aren't, by far, the most economically damaging form of distribution. And anyway, it can be argued that, in some cases, the p2p method of distribution is just as mass production as the piracy rings.

The point being that the DMCA, and the various forms of copy protection don't actually DO anything to stop this behaviour. Copyright law prior to the DMCA had all the necessary legal footing to pursue copyright violators.

My original point still stands, pursue the violators (p2p or otherwise), don't make laws that penalize valid use, and don't treat legal users as criminals (which is what these mechanisms do in practice, if not in principle).

More importantly, don't penalize the technology (p2p, etc.) to address the problem.

Re:OT: Smipsons

[Exatron]

Give the accurate quote:

Kang: Abortions for all
Crowd: (boo)

Kang: Very well, no abortions for anyone.
Crowd: (boo)

Kang: Hmm... Abortions for some, miniature American flags for others.
Crowd: (cheers)