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Ask Prof. Felten About DMCA's Effects
Princeton Computer Science Professor Edward W. Felten has been mentioned and quoted frequently on Slashdot, usually about DMCA matters and, more recently, about new state laws that may make it illegal to use "unapproved" networking devices, VPNs or firewalls with your home or office Internet connection. Please avoid questions that can be answered by reading the pages linked to here or with a bit of Google research. We'll post Prof. Felten's answers to 10 of the highest-moderated questions as soon as he has time to answer them.
Also, if you are aware of it, have the hardware/software manufacturers who will be affected joined together to fight these laws, or has it flown under their radar?
Dr. Felten, do you have an suggestion as to what sort of legistlation could be introduced that would soothe the minds of reactionary lawmakers while preserving the rights that we currently enjoy?
In other words, are we talking about "people" or "boxes"?
You were 80% angel, 10% demon. The rest was hard to explain. - Over The Rhine
"Math in a song is good."-Linford
Or to put it slightly less sillily, what was (and is!) your motivation for getting involved in this side of the Computer Science world, say, as opposed to the nice safe, clean theoretical stuff?
Paranoia isn't an infectious condition, it's a way of life
Do I completely misunderstand the scope of the DMCA, or would it have actually prohibited the actions of clone manufacturers, starting with Compaq, when they reverse-engineered the IBM PC BIOS in 1984?
It seems this simple fact alone would highlight the ludicrous nature of a law which would prohibit precisely the actions that provided the current state of the industry.
Xesdeeni
Professor Felten,
What's it going to take to get not only our legislators in their infinite wisdom, but the general public, to see the deleterious effects that DRM enforcement efforts and laws like the DMCA are/will have on both the entertainment and computer industries and our rights in general?
From experience, it's pretty difficult to explain exactly why the DMCA is so awful to the average person--it's very hard, for me at least, to provide a 60-second explanation of why I should be able to open up my digital VCR and find out how the software controlling it works, or why it's so bad that there's copy protection on a CD, rendering it useless for playing in a computer?
Perhaps if I could find just the right way to frame the argument, and get that message out, we might have some more people concerned about these matters.
Karma: Excellent Birds (mostly as a result of listening to Laurie Anderson)
Doesn't the DMCA prohibit a company from investigating a violation of their IP if the violation exists on the other side of encryption?
For example, if company M utilized a software algorithm (putting aside the argument about software patents for the moment) inside an encrypted data stream (audio file, video file, etc.) that was actually patented by company A, wouldn't it be a violation of the DMCA for company A to investigate this violation of their patent rights? And wouldn't any evidence they uncovered in violation of the DMCA be inadmissible if they tried to enforce their patent rights against company M?
Xesdeeni
In your opinion, do residents of Europe and other US-friendly (business-wise) areas have a hope of avoiding being adversely affected by the DMCA (or superDMCA) or its foreign implementations (e.g. EUCD) and is technological civil disobedience the best form of activism to follow?
- Brian.
Prof. Felten,
You are a vocal and staunch proponent of the 'right to tinker'. I understand and support your views on this subject, but I was wondering if you could give us a few examples where the 'right to tinker' was imperative to a major innovation? What innovations may have never come about or been delayed if the 'right to tinker' had never been a assumed privilege of the American citizen?
Keep up the good work!
smd4985
How exactly would the DMCA help/hurt independant musicians such as myself? In the beginning, most bands have to try and fend for themselves, and would find things like P2P filesharing to be a great help in getting heard. It seems as if the DMCA is tailored to assist large record companies, and not so much smaller labels and/or independant bands...
Blog Prophyts - Right On, Man
Most, but not all, readers of Slashdot have a distaste for the DMCA and other laws that have strengthened copyright laws. But what most do not accept is the fact that these laws were created to solve a very real problem.
Software and media piracy is no longer an underground sub-culture. Just about anyone with enough money for a computer is able to easily find and illegally duplicate software, music, movies, and other media. Worse yet, most of the (former) music and movie buying public are doing just that.
The only "reasonable" alternative to strengthening laws and adding copy-protection to media is to give the media away, and make money with live appearances and peripheral tangible products, such as lunchboxes and t-shirts. I'm sure the people working for media conglomerates do not find this acceptable.
Do you agree with this assessment, and if so, if you had the chance to re-architect the DMCA to your liking, what would you change? Would you remove some parts, or augment others?
Basically, almost everyone with a technological background will agree that this law is flawed. Is this soemthing without precendence? That Congress acted on pure ignorance, of course not.
My question to you Mr. Felten, do you think this law will inspire a new breed of creativity among hardware developers?
Maybe the same way copyright inspired copyleft, the DMCA is a form for companies to protect their products, and stop other people from profiting on those products (god forbid!), but since this really throws onto the pile, and adds hardware materials in to the copyright bin, maybe it will inspire some hardware enthousiasts to create copylefted hardware? blueprints and materials created by the people who love to tamper, and who would put a type of GPL on the specific materials as to prevent anyone from trying to hide the actual source if you will, of the product in question.
I personally think this would go a long way, engineers could actually start making money, by receiving support from people who enjoy their products, and suggest ways to improve such things. (Currently hard working engineers make billions for their respective companies and bring him mearly pennies to feed their families.)
I might be way off base, as the production line has it's fee's, but even tho it would be copylefted, dosen't mean it couldn't be sold, just means that anyone could improve it, or modify it.
Thanks for your time. Remi
Posting useless rant since 2003.
Prof. Felten has a weblog, Freedom to Tinker. It may answer some questions in advance. He is also teaching a class this semester called "Information Technology and the Law". The readings are online.
Do you see this new legislation altering our ability to work remotely? Will these restrictions place undue hardship on US workers when compared with facilities in other countries? Is it likely that other countries will evolve faster technologically as a result of these draconian measures?
Professor Felten,
The world I've lived in pre-Internet allowed me to, if I found a great newspaper article (or TV show episode) or song, to make a copy of it to pass along to one or a handful of friends to check out.
It certainly seems like this will be technologically unfeasible if/when sufficient copy protection becomes embedded in content-viewing technology in the mid-term future.
I know you aren't a lawyer, but you have parsed these laws carefully and talked to more lawyers than I. Did the type of usage I described above ever fall under 'fair use'? Is it 'fair use' today, and if not, is there a particular piece of legislation that changed the legality of this?
--LP