Slashdot Mirror
"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!"
somehow i doubt the governor is going to listen to his constituents when the MPAA i$ breathing down his neck.
"I can not bring myself to believe that if knowledge presents danger, the solution is ignorance" - Isaac Asimov
Time to once again send a fax to my senator. This is really getting to the point of rediculous by the MPAA and the RIAA. People will still be cracking their movies and music and spreading them over systems they cannot touch.
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
Knowing /. most people will just fax him a black page. The MPAA will be quaking in their boots at the huge bills for toner!
In Soviet Russia, beowulf clusters imagine YOU!
Friends, we are wasting our time with petty faxes, emails and written letters. We need to band together and purchase a Tomahawk cruise missile and then, only then, will be convince these infidels that they are wrong.
is this the most links ever in a Slashdot article? We should give amnesty to everyone who comments without R'ing The F'ing A's.
"And this is my boy, Sherman. Speak, Sherman." "Hello." "Good boy."
Someone (not me, I have things to do) needs to set up a website tracking this type of event, which allows people to enter their zipcodes and email addresses to be alerted when a lobbying opportunity arises in their area. I would be the first to sign up for Southern California.
If you feel you are up to the task - email me at ian[@]locut.us and I will do what I can to help, within the time contraints of my other projects.
Don't fall into the trap of thinking you can "make a difference".. Don't oppose the decisions of the government, that would be undemocratic of you. They know whats best for you, they are provided all the info they need on these issues by well-paid professionals.
Just sit back and take it easy.. writing letters is hard. Hey! whats on TV? could be you're missing a reeeealy good show! Nothing more to see here, move along..
This post has been sponsored by the **ia, this space for rent.
air and light and time and space
It will do no good to try to change their minds they
are to busy lining their pockets. Hucklebarry has cut budgets to about every social service in arkansas other than medicaid and food stamps. He will no doubt get a nice contribution from one of the labels for signing it.
As one of his constituents, I doubt he will listen (a lot of people in Arkansas recognize that he is in office for the wrong reasons), but I would say that's because most government officials will not take time to look at this issue in depth. The MPAA and RIAA can be very loud.
"I'm Governor Huckabee, and I congradulate Canada on the preservation of it's national igloo."
So I've seen quite a bit about the super DMCA legislation and I hadn't heard anything about efforts to pass such a thing in Illinois. Well, turns out that it was passed in July of last year.
I heard nothing about it at the time, of course, and so it's a bit too late to do anything abou it. Sure, you can try to get a law repealed, but it's significantly more difficult to get a law off the books than it is to keep it off in the first place.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
I like this sort of grassroots dissemination through the internet. Now if American /. readers were to act on it in any great number, and act as polite but concerned citizens, they can be a force for good.
Remember! The Internet is not just for porn! It's also about organizing politcal action to keep porn legal!
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
Don't you remember the Segway? How before it was even available, and before most people had even seen one it was being pronounced legal to ride on the sidewalks of major cities all over the US? How snappy lobbying suddenly made something OK without any real discussion?
The dangers of this are entirely in the disturbing broadness in the definitions, and the "everything not permitted is forbidden" catch. I much prefer the "everything not forbidden is permitted" way of things.
This would make it illegal for me to use fake referrer IDs (which I sometimes use) on my web browser. This would forbid me to share the DSL connection I share with my father's computer- why would ISPs ever want to allow shared connections? This would forbid me from burning my own music to CD, meaning the music that I myself composed.
The way it's worded actually outlaws power-line networking! While I don't really see that as a bad thing- people picking up on that will oppose the bill, and I think power-line networking is a Really Bad Idea(TM), it's more devious than that- with the "express consent required," you would have to get written consent from the companies in question whenever you want to plug something in to a wall outlet if power-line networking occurs.
This is a truly horrid, debilitating law- which I have every intention to flagrantly violate if I get a chance- start a company that specializes in making nothing but those things, use resources that law would forbid...
The "must get permission" thing is the part that scares me the most.
Warning: Poster of this comment is a nerd. Just like everybody else here.
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.
Just take a Linksys box, and a copy of Windows XP into the hearing room and tell the dumbasses there assembled that these useful and commonly used devices will be illegal in their state if this moronic bill passes. And that all those High Tech Jobs (TM) that aforementioned dumbasses keep saying they want to attract will move out of state if said moronic restrictions in fact become law.
sulli
RTFJ.
posessing a natural number
2 39 847923847293847092394 1738178274821797837491 238747 4368522 342637464 2348273498 2374
27829379428734982379487239847293847923487293487
488794879872082407187409167
987238471287491387492874827493874365873658
327647234729384727394823794823747234923
is illegal and will be prosecuted by the full extent.
Because this number just happens to be a Britney song encoded in Radix-50 MPEG-4 format.
If you got this number in your calculations, you MUST
stop now and erase it as soon as possible.
It's a shame people hold their entertainment as such an important part of their life that there could never be a successful boycot of the MPAA or RIAA.
No way would most people skip out on Matrix 2! Can you imagine, not forking over $8 to the MPAA to see a movie?!
Forget freedom, what's on TV?
It would send a more powerful message if politicians faced recall votes over issues like these. I don't see that happening though.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
********
Thank you for contacting my office regarding H.R. 107, the Digital Media Consumers' Rights Act (DMCRA). With changes in how consumers access copyrighted material, I agree that we must reexamine the application of our copyright laws.
As a member of the Intellectual Property Subcommittee, I will have the opportunity to work closely on this issue and agree that we must create a balance between protecting the artist's work and providing access for consumers. While copyright law should protect the property rights of the creators of a work, we must also ensure that consumers of those works have fair access to the material. Just as radio changed the way copyright law applied to music, the development of the Internet, peer-to-peer networks and digital copies are changing the applicatio of copyright law.
One way to address the imbalance is H.R. 107, which requires the producer of a work to properly label what the limits of how their materials may be used or accessed. In addition, the bill ensures that consumers have a fair use right to circumvent any new copyright protections. As this legislation is considerd in the Intellectual Property Subcommittee, I will be sure to keep your view in mind.
Again, thank you for contacting me and, if I can be of further assistance, please do not hesitate to contact my office.
Very truly yours,
Melissa Hart
Member of Congress
************
"We apologize for the inconvenience."
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.
While I live on the opposite corner, we do happen to have quite a few local tech jobs around here. If one wanted to completely overlook all the secondary players, Wal-Mart alone employees several thousand programmers. Honestly I hate the way people see pictures of southern Arkansas (or for that matter Memphis or Little Rock) and assume the whole damned state is like that. I live in a metro area of roughly 350,000 people with a 2.5% unemployment rate. AARP recently rated Fayetteville as the 5th best town in the country to live in. Our MSA is currently the sixth fastest growing in the country(47% increase in population from 1990-2000). It is also rated the 36th safest metropolitan area in the US. Our airport was one of only a handful that actually INCREASED in traffic after September 11th and continues to increase to this day. I'm not really sure what started this diatribe, but please refrain from taking point statistics and making that information seem to apply to an entire two state region.
If we could just get Washington, Lincoln, and Jackson to pipe down maybe we could get a word in edgewise. :-}
--- I wish I could hear the soundtrack to my life. That way I'd know when to duck.
Sad to say your complaints are falling on deaf ears. The politians don't give a rat's ass what you want. Wait until they start locking you guys up for using ssh or squid proxy.
Again, welcome to my world. Can you pass the soap?
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.
One of the things prohibited by this legislation is concealing the origin or destination of any communication from the communication service provider. This could mean you can't use ssh or a VPN!
The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act now requires these sorts of technologies when electronically communicating medical information. So will doctors in these states nolonger be able to access patient, hospital or insurance records from off-site?
It's all a question of priority. Your medical information isn't as important as the latest Britany Spears release.
Being a concerned Arkansas citizen, I contacted the representative who I consider to be the chief co-sponsor of House Bill 2361, the Arkansas 'Super-DCMA' bill that currently before the Governor's desk. He was kind enough to respond in brief although he is not my representative and with the end of this regular session (the second longest in Arkansas' history) must tend to more pressing matters. The summary of the email is an agreement to discuss the bill with me in greater detail soon (I trust him). He also made this one brief comment:
If anyone cares to hear the specifics of my future interview, I'll post it on my web site after the interview is held. Granted, the point is rather moot since the bill passed both houses.
What those who want activist courts fear is rule by the people.
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!)
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.