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"Super-DMCA" Bills In Tennessee and Arkansas
David Turner writes "Tomorrow, Tennessee's Senate Judiciary Committee is holding a hearing
on two nearly identical DMCA-like bills. These bills threaten
personal privacy, anonymity, and security research. SB
213 and HB457
are similar to state laws
introduced all over the country by the MPAA. Despite amendments, the bills still threaten digital freedom. Last
month, twenty people showed up at the Massachusetts public
hearing, and effectively opposed the one MPAA lobbyist. If you attend, speak from notes rather than simply reading a statement (but you
may be able to submit written testimony). Please come to Legislative
Plaza in Nashville, rooms 12 and 14 at 3:30pm." And Kraken137 writes "The House and Senate of the Arkansas state legislature have passed the MPAA's "Super-DMCA" Bill, and it is now sitting on the Governor's desk awaiting his signature. It's not too late to convince him to veto this bill! Arkansas residents are urged to contact the Governor's office to express their opposition to this violation of rights. The ever-vigilant EFF has a page where residents can send a fax to Governor Huckabee's office to let their voices be heard. Remember, paper and phone calls make more of a difference than emails!"
The EFF has also set up a page to Fax, email, or print a letter to your Tennessee reps:
t em =2628
http://action.eff.org/action/index.asp?step=2&i
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Thank goodness someone brought this issue to light. I tried submitting an article earlier and was rejected.
This DMCA stuff is serious. Together with the USA PATRIOT act, we are *seriously* look at an Orwellian future, people.
It's really time to do something, no more procrastinating.
If you can't go out and do something in person, then at least make a donation to the EFF and the ACLU. They both even have a monthly recurring system where you can have a small charge made to your credit card every month. A monthly contriubtion will make you feel a lot less guilty when going to the movie theater or blockbuster.
Please don't let this pass you by. The ??AA lobbyists are subverting our freedoms to tell us what we are allowed to do with the things we already own!
It's ridiculous that corporations have more political power than the people who actually elect our officials. Can we not read the bribery between the lines? This is offensive on so many levels...
It's time to act, people. How do you want your future to be determined -- by youself or by a corporation?
Please consider making an automatic monthly recurring donation to the EFF
Essentially what this "Super DMCA" is geared at is allowing copyright holders access to ISP private information (including but not limited to, IP address, street address, phone number, etc) of "copyright infringers" in the hopes of halting online music/movie piracy. It would basically outlaw any network address translation device (e.g. routers, gateways, firewalls) that could coneal the IP address of a suspected infringer.
to busy saving the Free World, eh?
good thing there already are things like this in place:
http://capwiz.com/afr/home/
i've found it really handy, so far. nice record of how my reps and senators voted.
The RIAA and MPAA send their lobbyists to individual state legislatures in an attempt to get Senators and Representatives they feel will be sympathetic to their cause to introduce the bill. Those Senators and Representatives then contact their friends in the Senate and House of the state to gain support for their proposed bill. The bill is then drafted and a hearing often takes place before one or more committees in the state house and senate. During these hearings the MPAA and RIAA lobbyists are often called on to speak and say why the law should be adopted. These hearings are usually done in such a way that the average Joe can't participate, nor can groups opposed to the bill such as the EFF and ACLU. Once the RIAA and MPAA lobbyists have addressed the state congress they will then have presented a completely one-sided view of their issue to the congress, which will only see one side of the coin, and vote before they can really look at the other side. A lot of this gets hurried through because of the large number of issues that come before the state house and senate, and some of it gets hurried through by the Senators or Representatives that introduce the bill because they want to get it passed.
You can find a verbose analysis, but basically it comes down to: You may not connect *anything* to a wire in your house without "express consent or express authorization" of your service provider(s). It will be illegal to share or use any "insructions or plans" for devices which may receive intercept, disrupt, transmit, re-transmit, decrypt, acquire, facilitate, or intercept any communication without the express authorization of the communication service provider.
Please consider making an automatic monthly recurring donation to the EFF
Having worked in the US Congress as a Legislative Correspondent, I can confidently say, huh uh! We physically counted phone calls, letters, faxes and emails completely equally with no regard to their type, as did every other congressional office that I was familiar with. The only thing that made one correspondence count and another not is if one was not from a constituent address.
I think I'll stop here.
I'm not a lawyer, but it certainly appears to be that way. CDW, look out.
Hoist Number One and Number Six.
I just feel that trying to battle the MPAA in the lobying arena is not very fruitful. The real power of voters is in their vote. We have to change the way governments make desicions before we have a chance against big business. This whole problem is here because of a black market that the MPAA created through their virtual monopoly. A free market would make everybody happy IMO. I, for one, would rather buy 4 CD's for $5 each than one for $15. It seems to me that the MPAA needs to fire their economists.
"I can not bring myself to believe that if knowledge presents danger, the solution is ignorance" - Isaac Asimov
There is a good chance that a lot of the faxes, emails and other correspondance sent to Arkansas Governor Huckabee will be dismissed out of hand. It is the tendency of elected officials to only listen to their constituents. So, if you are not from Arkansas, he is not obliged to listen.
I first learned of this phenomina when I lived in Northern Virginia and became friends with a Legislative Assistant of a prominent US Senator. He commented that the US Senators always, always, always ignore any communication not sent by a consitutent. He said, "that's why they have their own Senators."
So, if you're not from Arkansas, don't expect to be heard by our Governor.
What those who want activist courts fear is rule by the people.
The way the problem was solved in France was to set spending limits for political campaigns, with penalties for trespassers including the cancellation of the election and the prohibition from running for public office for a while.
This may sound like a restriction to free speech... Yet if you think of it, the only way those people could have that much money was not from contributions from citizens,but using slush funds and corporate donations. Corporations have no right to free speech!
(Interesting note: membership fees for political parties are partly tax-deductible, but the receipts don't bear the name of the party so that the tax service doesn't see who you vote for. Of course, it is pretty useless since the membership fees for all major parties are known, it's just a matter of looking the price up!)
Yes; a similar bill was passed in my home state (Colorado) earlier this month. So. Now that it's law, what can we do? Aside from all the usual stuff -- writing letters, sending faxes, emailing, pickets, meetings with state reps, etc. -- we can file lawsuits to enforce the law. These bills are so broadly written that they're their own worst enemy. We should file lawsuits against innocent bystanders who happen to have had their otherwise legitimate activities outlawed by these bills, in order to raise a mighty ruckus over them.
... the existence or place of origin or destination of any communication." The EFF points out that this includes things like the lightweight routers (made by companies like Linksys, Netgear, SMC, etc) that have become popular for sharing internet connections within one's own home. The process of Network Address Translation that these routers use to allow for the sharing has the side-effect of concealing the real origin of communications from your network: everything looks like it's coming from the router, when in fact it comes from the assorted devices behind the router.
An example. According to the EFF's analysis of these bills, the bills incorporate language that bans devices that "conceal
So. If the use of these devices is now illegal, surely it must therefore be illegal to offer them for sale? Let's see, who all sells these things? Office Depot, Office Max, Best Buy, CompUSA, and Amazon.com spring to mind. So we file suit against them demanding that they remove the affected merchandise from their stores in affected states. The bills provide for heavy-duty damages on a per-device basis. Simple possession of a router could cost between $1,500 and $10,000 -- each. With fines like that on the line, and dozens or hundreds of devices in stock, the companies selling the routers are sure to fight back. And regardless of whether they win or not, the case will generate lots of bad publicity for the nimnulls who voted it into law. Which, combined with more traditional techniques like blanketing the legislature and the local papers with letters, should make it a lot easier to get the law repealed.
Now, all we need is some lawyer who's interested in doing it.
Your lawsuit would be thrown out of court because you don't have standing to bring a claim. You aren't a hardware manufacturer, or a retail chain, or a provider of some service that's, in theory, being harmed by these devices. You'll blow some money on a lawyer and totally waste your time.
Now, if you had a reasonable fear that your activities would be subject to lawsuit, you could try to get an affirmation from the court as to whether your actions were legal or not. The only problem with this approach, as we've seen in recent DMCA legal wrangingling, is that the judge may throw it out, once again, because you have no standing.
Also, as far as suing retailers over possession of these devices, the law doesn't address that. I can certainly use NAT within my corporate network, and I can use NAT on my Internet service assuming my provider is okay with it. It's just saying that I can't use NAT unless they say it is okay.
The simple solution to all of this is to pay more money, either to the company who is making you pay per connection now, or buying into a service that doesn't care. I have DSL service through speakeasy and they don't care what I do. I run servers, I use NAT, and they are totally happy. I pay more and I get more. As long as there is competition in the market this isn't a problem.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
ACM Communications, the primary publication of the Association for Computing Machinery, the Computer Science professional society, contains a special feature on Digital Rights Management. I have not finished reading all of the articles in this section, but my take thus far is that ACM US has taken an active role in attempting to provide technological guidance and advise to Congress on this issue and with respect to both proposed legislation and court cases testing laws in this area. Yet, the pressure that has been brought to bear by the big copyright holder interests thus far have far outweighed those of the technologists and their commercial interests.
Additionally, there have been a continuing series of articles in this publication as well as others produced by ACM providing additional analysis of the topic along with recommendations for action.
Give it a good read... its both encouraging that such comprehensive analysis is in fact being brought to the highest levels of government, and discouraging in that thus far it seems to have made little difference.
Finally, this might be a good reason to join ACM to add to the strength of their(our) voice.
Actually, I am a member in good standing of the media in TN. I am a avid slashdotter, and apparently my plate has been too full to see this one coming down the street. Terribly sorry for the gaff, but here is some TN advice.
SO here is what I would suggest to people, as I know Phil Bredesen (the Gov), and interview him about once a week or more...
Pick a spokesman for the
He is a nerd. Harvard math. Grad school stuff. He likes computers. I kid you not. He will get technical with you in a second about a number of subjects (he one day asked what Kelvin the color temperature my camera was getting in the shade). It is actually refreshing to meet a man that is the governor that is also smart enough to look up to. This is a man that got elected on the "TN is not thinking smart about its finances, and I know finances" platform. He should know. He is a self-made millionaire, so he doesn't worry about re-election money or owing anyone anything. He's already got money. He even turned down his salary because of budget problems. I don't like politicians because I see them up close, but I actually like this guy.
So, if you can, make a very detailed, very compelling argument to him FROM HIS CONSTITUENTS and send it off. If he gets it I guarantee it will not pass over his head... few things do. I would help, but I work for the local news, and well, my microphone is pointing at him too often to get involved.
Personally, I think that Phil Bredesen is your best shot on shooting this down in TN. The TN House and Senate are the most political animals on the planet (truly "Old Southern Politics" at work) so there is no hope there with the lobbyists around.
Good luck guys.