Senator Pushes Bill To Limit Anti-Copying Schemes

Brushfireb writes "Republican Sen. Sam Brownback is pushing a bill that will limit the ability of record labels, movie studios and others to use anticopying technology on their products. Most notably, this is important because it states that people will be able to resell their used DVDs, along with putting a concrete limit on this behavior of DRM/anticopying schemes by the RIAA and MPAA."

Comments

Re:BSD is Alive

[essdodson]

I use FreeBSD instead of Linux mainly because its userbase isn't hell bent on destroying MS. We have far more productive things to do with our time. I think it shows with each and every release.

protecting the right of consumers

[fozzy(pro)]

A Elected Offical trying to protect consumers as opposed to corp. rights. what a nice idea

Re:protecting the right of consumers

[Technician]

I don't think he wants money for this one. Think real hard. What could a politician want more than money.

OK Time is up.. VOTES
Can you think of a better way to get them?
They may be out voted on the floor, but they will bet there next term when much of the others will not be.

what do you want, your job or the bling bling...

[sweeney37]

Perhaps with Rep. Rick Boucher's DMCRA bill in the House, maybe our government isn't being as shortsighted as they have been in the past. Maybe the rumblings of consumers (read, voters) will outweigh the cash in the pocket from the **AAs.

Mike

A congress of compromises

[littlerubberfeet]

Unfortunately, our congress has been known to pass bills that sound strong but are actually crippled. I am wondering how this bill will be crippled in conference comittee if passed. Hopefully the EFF's lobby can at least moderate the MPAA/RIAA lobbying machine.

I applaud the congressman for taking such a bold step. I guess it is time for the all of us to get out a pen and write some letters of support. Can everyone please write in support of this? We all know that email is mostly ignored, while they actually have to carry the weight of our letters.

It's about time

[Anonymous Coward]

It's about time for the Republicans to wake up and realize that they have so few friends in Hollywood that a scorched-earth policy on the entertainment industry is in order. It would be sweet to see the left coast starved of money.

Excellent news!

[Wellspring]

This is extremely good news....

It's also our big chance. Take the time to write a polite letter, encouraging your Senators and Congressman to support this bill. Then print it out, sign it and MAIL it (that's right, snail mail!).

Things are still very early. There's plenty of time for it to die in committee, or be riddled with amendments (some irrelevant, some helpful, some counterproductive). Your job, if you care, is to express your support for this bill-- and those who support it.

If you're from Kansas, you should be especially supportive of Senator Brownback's position in this-- even if you disagree with him on other issues, you should take the time to publicly agree with him on IP reform.

This is a great first step. We need to remember that it isn't the only step, and there's work in here for us to do, too.

Law is not the solution

[seichert]

These companies have a right to sell whatever product they want. If they want to make a DRM'd DVD that can only play in a special DVD player that is their right to do so. You do not have the right to force these companies to make the product that you want. You do have a right not to buy it.

Re:I may actually have to switch parties

[Arandir]

Why are you surprised? When the term "Hollywood liberal" refers to members and associates of the MPAA and RIAA, and the "D" before many congressmen's names refers to "Disney", I don't particularly perceive the Democrat party as one championing my rights to listen to the music I have purchased.

Protecting the right of Private Citizens

[c0dedude]

Yeah, but is he? Is there an IMMINENT, PRESSING NEED for this law? Isn't there just a need for a warning label? I guess what I'm saying is that we should consider whether we should allow the government to just take away the right to copy-protect CD's without an imminent need. I mean, just becuase it can be done doesn't mean it should be done. I, for one, think that the US was not created to take away liberties without societal need, and here there's no need past a warning label to the extent of "this cd can't be copied. don't buy it" or some such. Allowing the government to take away rights just because it's popular is dangerous. See DMCA, Patriot Act. And it's expensive. Consider the small record label that wants to copy-protect its CD's, but can't afford a lawyer to appear before a judge. This isn't fair. There's no reason the government should regulate this beyond a label, the forces of the market should handle this.

Re:Protecting the right of Private Citizens

[isorox]

Say I owned the last edition of the complete works of Shakespere, no one else in the world had it (say there had been a nuclear war or something). I could make copy of it, and the world wouldnt lose Shakespere. (replace Shakespere with anything that has been created, 1984, the bible, Temptation Island episode 4)

The ability not to be able to copy something could, and eventually will (how many original copies of the bible are left?), lead to the loss of that work. That is a shame. When its a large scale loss, human knowlege could go back 2000 years. When the libary of alexandria was burnt down, that was a crime of horrific proportions, centuries of human work lost because the only copy was lost.

Had they made copies, it would have been ok. Copy prevention stops everyone except the copyright holder making copies. Forever. The copyright holder goes bust, or loses interest, and we lose part of human culture.

Re:Protecting the right of Private Citizens

[aborchers]

You have a good point. I am not for wanton and unnecessary expansion of the law. A perfect example in this context is DMCA, which criminalizes technology when copyright law already exists to prosecute criminals.

However, copy protection limits fair-use rights that are explicit in the US Code and are upheld by such case law as the Sony Betamax case and the failed attempt to shutdown Diamond Rio. For that reason, it is not so far out to stop companies from employing technological protections that impede the already enumerated rights of consumers, no?

Come to think of it, I'm curious why noone has yet argued the case that copyright protection technologies themselves are already illegal because they impede fair use.

Re:Protecting the right of Private Citizens

[tignom]

You're looking at this from the wrong perspective. What you should be asking is: Is there an imminent need for the law to prevent copying?

Right now, copyright law is an articifial, legally created monopoly on intellectual/artistic works. The law explicitly grants special permission to one person restrict the supply of that work. We're talking about restricting the scope of an existing figment of legislation, not creating an entirely new one. In effect, we're restoring a freedom to the market rather than taking one away.

Let me say this one more time. I want my freedoms, not a warning label reminding me that they've been revoked.

Re:Protecting the right of Private Citizens

[DarkZero]

I, for one, think that the US was not created to take away liberties without societal need, and here there's no need past a warning label to the extent of "this cd can't be copied. don't buy it" or some such. Allowing the government to take away rights just because it's popular is dangerous. See DMCA, Patriot Act. And it's expensive. Consider the small record label that wants to copy-protect its CD's, but can't afford a lawyer to appear before a judge. This isn't fair. There's no reason the government should regulate this beyond a label, the forces of the market should handle this.

This debate, like the entire debate on copyrights and fair use, is a matter of perspective. Is this bill taking away their right to copy protect their works or asserting our fair use right to copy the things we own? That's the crux of the whole copyright issue, right there. Do Americans have a right to the free exchange of ideas without restrictions that is simply deferred for a few years by copyrights or do artists have a right to restrict and sell their ideas up until the public domain defers their right to sell after a few years?

I think that basically, the whole thing comes down to someone eventually getting screwed. As a consumer, I would prefer that the law screw THEM. As the guys that have sole ownership of the works of the artists that they've bought, the RIAA and MPAA would prefer that the law screw ME. There needs to be a compromise somewhere, but the situation that we have right now isn't it. Consumers have no fair use rights whatsoever, but the RIAA and MPAA have perpetual copyrights that last more than a century, the right to put copy protection on CDs, and total control of the hardware medium that lets them decide when I can rewind and fast forward, and whether I can play a DVD that I've bought depending on where I live and where I got my DVD player. The consumer is taking it up the ass right now and the copyright holders could stand to lose a couple of their extremely extensive and occasionally unconstitutional rights.

Re:Protecting the right of Private Citizens

[silentbozo]

There are plenty of games and programs from the early days of personal computing that only exist because someone defeated the copy protection, and cared enough to store and recopy that data. Programs that nobody was able to copy - probably don't exist anymore...

And that was just over the span of only 20 years?

Please lobby this. If you decide to, please...

[Blain]

Wait for sending out messages to random Congressfolk until the bill is submitted and has a number. If you contact your Senators or Rep to support a bill without a number, it's not going to reflect well on your position unless you have a relationship with them to begin with or know that they're so into the issue that they might sign on to cosponsor.

Hitting Sen. Brownback's website, there's no mention of this bill at all. My guess is that we're ahead of the curve on this. The work to do now is going to be more along the lines of organizing the effort to work this bill. It's going to take time and commitment (not to mention attention span). If the bill's not submitted yet, selected calls to the right senators can help collect cosponsors. After it's been submitted, it's a good idea to contact the committee staff and committee members of the appropriate committee (especially if they're from your state) to encourage their support in scheduling the bill for a hearing and their vote to report it out of committee. This process is slow and long (review "I'm Just a Bill" from Schoolhouse Rock for a brief reminder).

It is good to contact Congressfolk to tell them what you want them to do. It's very good to be polite, succinct, and thoughtful in your presentation. It's very important to have the right message at the right time -- they get so much mail and email and phone comments every day that asking for their support for something that won't need their attention for months (or years) can seem to them an annoying waste of time.

Contacting Sen. Brownback's staff to thank them for this bill is a very good idea, especially for Kansans. Asking how you could help would also be a good idea.

Take care,
Blain

Re:Nice

[digitalunity]

You got it. When the DVD Consortium sets a DRM standard, the DVD Player producers must follow suit or they lose business to Media/Hardware conglomerates who will support the new standard. This costs them a lot of money to keep up with constantly changing DRM standards. It cuts into their profits. And no matter what the MPAA says, DRM will not increase the sales of DVD's or the sales of DVD players. Everyone who really wants a DVD player already owns one. The only way to get consumers out there to buy new players is if they *have* to. They will have to piggyback DRM on new players with value-adding features for a while before requiring it. To alienate your consumers is to kill yourself fiscally.

Re:Nice

[cosmicg]

Well I, for one, wrote him a letter on this very topic only 4 months ago. Though I don't know if my substantial debt-load qualifies me as "someone with money..." Of course, I know that my letter wasn't the impetus for this bill, but it certainly garnered a mark in the 'for' column.

So, just a friendly reminder...
WRITE YOUR CONGRESSMEN!

What a mixed bag.

[bluelan]

It's an awful idea to limit the types of DRM that industry can employ. They'll just weasle up to the edge of legality, then seep over while attention is elsewhere. We need a bill that affirms the legality of fair use tools, even if they bypass DRM. This bill will still allow the industry to control the methodology of fair use. I can provide a resale mechanism that artificially inflates the resale price due to inconvenience. No prob.

We need to let the market drive the mechanism for backups, resale, time shifting, format shifting, etc. Otherwise, consumers lose because certain companies don't see a profit in making those things convenient. This bill attempts to substitute a government beaurocracy for market forces, which is inefficient and ineffective.

On the other hand, these items are all great:

• Government mandated copy-prevention for general purpose computers is excluded.
• Media with copy-prevention mechanisms must be labelled.

I wouldn't support this particular bill because it's a band-aid when stiches are needed.

There is an imminent, pressing need.

[Kjella]

Copyright is a limited monopoly, both limited in time, and in extent (read: Fair use).

Copy prevention takes away both. Under the excuse of enforcing the rights granted by copyright law, they use it to leverage complete and utter control, something the law was never intended to do.

And the law makers fell for it with the DMCA, essentially granting both eternal copyright, the right to revoke a work out of existance, and to deny all fair use rights.

I, for one, think that the US was not created to take away liberties without societal need

I agree completely. So when you see that corporations have taken away the liberties of the Private Citizen using US law as a puppet, you work to restore those rights. Or did I completely misunderstand your subject line? Corporations have no interest in the public domain nor in fair use, those are your liberties. Protect them indeed.

Kjella