Is The Eldred Decision Bad For The DMCA?

clonebarkins writes "Law.com is running an article by Evan P. Schultz suggesting that the Eldred decision (/. story) could mean bad news for our favorite four-letter law: the DMCA."

Comments

Reading in too much..

[molo]

Ginsburg said that the sonny bono copyright act doesn't change the face of copyright in the law, but merely extend the term, it was fine.

This guy is taking that and making it into a case that the court thinks that the DMCA isn't fine.

I think he's reading in a lot and its too much of a stretch to reach that conclusion.

-molo (IANAL)

raises the bar for literacy in the digital age?

[imsmith]

The comment about the untechnical users being deprived off fair use by technological means makes me think that "literacy" has been given a new legal power:

If you are unable to understand and comprehend the work, that is you are illiterate to the communication means utilized to create the work, you are not entitled to fair use rights. Fair use in this context seems to have nothing to do with the presentation or distribution of the work to the audience, only the means of production - a distinction not present in a written work, which combines production and presentation, but starkly clear in computer software.

It seems to be saying that since I don't have fair use rights to timeshift a movie on opening day, to store a live performance by calling in the artist to play at 4 am, or to experience a baseball game with out a ticket, I also don't have the right to acquire the work of another person which will give me by proxy the technical expertise that I don't have, namely the literacy required to exercise my fair use rights over technologically protected works.

Sounds a lot like polling tests in the South that kept the illiterate from voting in elections.

Re:Quantity versus Quality

[Alsee]

Now, will someone please use something that would be banned by the DMCA for a legitimate, meaningful, publicly supported task and dare someone to sue under the DMCA.

I have a better idea - preform the decryption entirely mentally. It is a crime to decrypt, no matter how you do it. There is absolutely nothing about the law that has anything to do with computers. They just assumed that DRM will only be circumvented using a computer, and they assumed decryption tools were EXE's and hardware. Decryption tools are actually math and knowledge. Absolutely any program to decrypt can be "run" purely mentally by thinking through the lines of the program one by one. It may take a while and take a lot of effort, but it's always possible.

I'm not sure of the best way to get prosecuted for violating this law, but try not to let them know the decryption was done mentally until they actually drag you into court. I'd like to see them try to defend a law putting you in prison just for thinking certain thoughts. That's GOTTA be unconstitutional.

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