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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."
I tried 5.1-BETA2 on my Thinkpad and it wouldn't even install or run the generic kernel. I guess that's why they call it beta :)
-- I have a private email server in my basement.
The release schedule had this release planned for may 30, and the release of 5.1 set for June 5. Is it just me, or is 6 days between first release candidate and final release cutting it a bit fine? I know that 5.1 is not -STABLE (which is why I'm using 4.8, and looking forward to 5.2), but even so...
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What groups are lobbying for this stuff? I can't imagine a politician pushing for stuff like this without someone with money lobbying for it.
After all, these days, politicians care more about compaign money than actually pleasing the people who do the real voting; enough compaign money, it doesn't matter how much of a bastard you are. ~,^
Seriously, tho, who are the backers of this bill?
It's good to finally see a congress-person supporting what they feel is right rather than the opinion of whoever's giving them the most money.
Though this doesn't mean there won't be copy protection. It just means that if you download copy protected material, the DRM can't prevent you from moving it (copy&delete) to another computer.
There's also Zoe Lofgren's BALANCE act. I tend to be as cynical as the next guy when it comes to my expectations of Congress to watch the interests of consumers, but there are a handful of folks there who seem to get it.
Ultimately, whatever the lobbyists are pumping in, the one thing corporations don't have is the vote, and as consumers at large become aware of what's going on, I bet you will see more Congresspeople under pressure to come around to "our side".
Trouble making decisions? Just flip for it.
No, I am not a co-owner or anything, I just have never seen a store like this before, and the owner is truly righteous. They deserve all the praise they get (they are wildly popular amongst cubicle workers in the area).
his contributions to legislation
He seems to be quite good, and in many ways opposite certain cenators such as Hollings. (doesn't mean I think hes the greatest at all, but from our evolution-not-required state, certainly beats some states.)
I'm from Kansas, and I actually voted for Brownback. He's a great guy...I recently send an email to all the politicans from Kansas regarding the Patriot Act. Brownback was the first one to respond...a few hours after I sent the email. He also followed up with a letter in the mail. I'm not suprised that he is pushing for this legislation.
I know it is an extreme longshot, but maybe the wacky FCC decision has finally woken at least some of them up. I was watching the Senate hearing yesterday and almost every Senator on the panel was completely against their decision and made it plainly known, although naturally the Democrats were somewhat harder on them.
(Stolen sig) Remember: it's a "Microsoft virus", not an "email virus", a "Microsoft worm", not a "computer worm
Bah! More money as in a 47%-53% split. Sounds to me like they're greasing both sides of the aisle and concentrating on incumbents. I mean, it's not like AOL/TW, who gave 100% to dems, or Curb Records, who gave 100% to reps.
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
Copyright is so fundamental that it's clearly provided for in the U.S. Constitution. That document also talks about the reason for copyright. It's NOT to make more money for Disney. It's "To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries". Specifically, in return for the legal protection of copyrights and patents for a limited time, the public is promised that these works will eventually become public property.
This legal concept is being completely perverted in two different ways, and there is an IMMINENT, PRESSING NEED to correct this. The first problem is, of course, that our own lawmakers are giving the special interests longer and longer extensions on these rights. Some have even openly stated an intention to continue to extend copyrights perpetually so that any current copyright would never expire. This needs to be stopped to prevent even further erosion of the constitution. The second is DRM technology. In extreme cases DRM technology can give the publisher so much control that it would be unreasonable to expect a work to ever pass into the public domain. Imagine for example a movie released only to a digital rights managed medium that can not be re-recorded and must be authorized by the publisher for every single viewing (and be confident that work is progressing towards this end). While such a company would enjoy all the protection of copyright laws (even the excesses of the DMCA), they might never pass their protected works on to public ownership, even if copyright extension creep is stopped. Even if they are still around when the copyright expires, there is no provision in the law that would compel them to activity take actions to turn over digital rights keys or other technology that could be needed to avail the public of their eventual ownership of previously protected works.
Look at patents - in this case a patent is granted in return for disclosure on how the invention works. You are not required to patent an invention. You could, for example, make some invention a trade secret, and never disclose it's secrets outside of your organization. In such a case others are free to try to invent it also, but if no one legitimately can duplicate your invention you might well have complete use of it for more than the term of a patent. But if you do want patent protection, you must disclose it so that it will be owned by the public after the patent expires in exchange for your exclusive patent monopoly for the term of the patent. DRM presents the danger that a corporation can get the legal protections of a copyright but also keep private the work as if it were a trade secret. The need to correct this problem is indeed IMMINENT and PRESSING now, before it becomes widespread.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
Just a question, something to think about...
If you owned the last copy of Shakespeare, do you have an obligation to copy it or even preserve it? I don't mean would you, I most certainly would make sure it was available for mass distribution, and so would most people I'd wager. I just mean, if some strange person were to own it, does anyone else have the right to force him/her to give it up? (we'll assume the person owns it outright physically, and has no copyright on it)
Yes, I have my own answers to that question, but I'm not interested in leading a long discussion about why I'm right or not. Simply, I think it's a question a lot of people would skip over without much concern. Something for you to think about.
I'm against this law. I don't think we should have a bill that limits a company's ability to copy-protect its intellectual property. I also don't think we should have a law restricting a citizen's ability to break that copy-protection (DMCA) either. It ruins the whole sport of it.
Let's be honest. The one thing we all truly respect around here is hacking ability. And that's how this whole game used to (and should still) work. If you were hardcore enough to figure out a way to copy-protect your stuff so that people couldn't easily break it, you deserved to have your IP protected (remember when the first SimCity came out and it shipped with a purple and black page of codes that you couldn't photocopy? Good Stuff!). And if you were enough of a cracking stud to find the tiny, oddly-named file in which X-Wing hid its copy protection (or figured out how to decrypt a DVD), by God you deserved a free copy.
It was a delicate balance, but it worked! We the technologically-gifted were able to either crack stuff on our own or find people on BBS's that could, while the lamers who made fun of us at school kept the IP-producing companies rolling in dough by buying their products at Wal-Mart.
But now they've gone and ruined the game. Where's the fun in not being able to crack stuff, and where's the fun in not being able to wrap your IP in stuff for other people to crack?
This tagline is umop apisdn.
Actually this is an interesting point. I was recently hunting around for "Agent USA", an educational game released by Scholastic if i'm not mistaken. Basicly it's a game designed to teach geography. You play a little white hat with feet that has these crystals to defeat the fuzz bomb, and must grow 100 crystals and travel by train to locate the fuzz bomb, but not get fuzzed your self. It's tacky but actually enjoyable.
o mmon-Sense.htm] that didn't permit duplication, a simple 50 page pamphlet that has been noted as having a profound affect on a small newly formed nation, and words still used today. Imagine also if it was deemed to be *unacceptable* and with a flick of a switch no one could access it, and any attempt to circumvent copy protection resulted in 20 years in jail.
From what I can tell, you can only get from amature software libraries. Storage isn't a big deal, it's like 45K minium depending on the version you get. But I've actually been trying to jump through the hurtles at Scholastic, and basicly while it is one of their registered trademarks, they don't sell it, and none of their references helped locate one, nor are they able to answer questions about the release license.
Again, this isn't shakespere, but it is something that otherwise would be lost.
But that's the way it is. They can't sell me a copy, according to them, they don't have any. It's not like I can convience them to make more, why should they. So it's either get a copy off a website or do without.
Same deal with a game called, "Mercenary". Dispite people trying to contact the copyright holder for either a copy of this game or the rights to distribute either the old versions or the right to freely distribute a clone, the guy is no where to be found. While I don't see a tremdious demand for the game, and this is a game after all, it's one of those cases that the only reason it's still in existance is it was preserved dispite it violating the letter of the copyright.
Imagine of Thomas Paine's "Common Sence" was written as an adobe e-book [http://www.ebookmall.com/alpha-titles/c-titles/C
In the importal words of Danny Elfman, "Wake up! It's 1984".
There is no sanctuary. There is no sanctuary. SHUT UP! There is no shut up. There is no shut up.
Okay, it's Friday, so I'll bite ... there's nothing new here.