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EFF Reviews 5 Years Under The DMCA
briaydemir writes "The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has a new report, Unintended Consequences:
Five Years under the DMCA, detailing how the DMCA has stiffled competition, innovation, scientific research, and fair use. The original news release is here, and the report is also available as a PDF. Check it out if you want a good summary of all the DMCA cases over the past five years."
This article really shows why it is time for the DMCA to go. Anyone who happens to create any sort of device that someone figures out a way to use it to circumvent anything can be sued under the DMCA. (See also the Sklyarov incident.) Remember when someone discovered that you could use a Sharpie to circumvent the copy protection on a CD? Manufacturers/programmers/whatever should never be responsible for what anyone does outside the intended uses.
Another problem is that Congress makes some of these laws so vague as to leave too much interpretation up to the judges who try cases under these laws. Unfortunately, organizations such as the EFF don't have the clout or the resources that the corps do.
I have to stop now before I go on a rant ;-)
There is no spoon or sig.
What I'd really like to know is just how "unintended" some of these consequences were... *shrug*
One of the things that bothers me most about laws like the DMCA and the NET (no electronic theft) act is the excessive punishments they put in place for various violations.
For example, the DMCA makes it a felony to circumvent a copy protection device. And, similarly, the NET act makes it a felony to share copyrighted materials via a service like Kazaa with a possible 5 year prison term.
Regardless of whether the things out lawed by legislation like this really should be out lawed or not, the punishments really need to be adjusted to fit the crime. Neither getting your dvd player to play dvd's from europe, nor sharing the latest Eminem song should even carry the possiblity of landing you several months little less several years in the slammer. Okay, the Eminem case is iffy, but otherwise...
For those of you who seem to recall a very similar story but can't quite pin it down: your not crazy. The EFF revises their opinion on the DMCA every year, under the title "Unintended Consequences: X Years under the DMCA." I traced it back at least to 2 years ago, and there may have been articles previous.
They do make several good points, and I would go into more specifics but I really don't have time to read the new version (I read the older editions a year ago when I was investigating impacts of the DMCA for a research paper). An actual evaluation of the entire DMCA document is difficult especially due to the nature of Copyright law, Fair Use, et al, but the EFF does a good job, albeit a mildly biased one.
On a related note for those of you that have 30 seconds: support the EFF's newest petition -> "Take a Stand Against the Madness; Stop the RIAA!" Its a useful free alternative to being even more useful and donating to the cause.
**AA: a bunch of mindless jerks who'll be the first against the wall when the revolution comes
Or maybe using 'head -n6' counts as reverse engineering...
Christian Jones
Medicine. Mathematics. Mediocrity.
. . . because they were in a dispute with the painter's guild. Steinway painted their pianos. The painter's guild claimed this as a violation of their guild rights.
Steinway said, "Fuck this shit" (Well, the German equivilent actually), and came to America. In the process making America the center of a cultural technology that had previously been a European monopoly.
America is making such inovative freedom illegal. It will reap the consecquences, just as did Europe.
The DMCA was written entirely to protect existing vested interests. When you do so you automatically restrict (even if that wasn't your intent) development of other interests that spur economic growth.
The end result is stagnation with all power and wealth gradually making its way into a few hands.
Welcome to the economic algae pond, Brother.
KFG
The DMCA has nothing to do with maritime law. It was not enacted to protect cargo ships or the spanish armarda. "Pirate" is a propaganda term used by copyright owners to imply that unauthorized copying is the equivilent of murder and theft on the high seas. The message is clear: only a vicious enemy of the people would do unauthorized copying. To a lesser degree the term "protection" is also a propaganda term to describe what copyright owners do in restricting our freedom. These terms are an important weapon of people who support the DMCA and other stifling laws as they encourage informers to rat people out to the non-official police forces the copyright owners fund.
All in all, you'd think the EFF would be too smart to play their game.
How we know is more important than what we know.
- Crowbars should be declared circumvention devices and be banned, since they can be used to pry open a door which is protecting copyrighted material
- Airport x-ray devices can be used to see through solid materials and discover copyrighted materials within a briefcase, for example. Thus, x-ray devices circumvent a protection mechanism.
Any others?Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
Create a boy band called DMCA then plit them up giving them all losing solo careers
Create a rap group RunDMC is taken but JogDMCA is available
Take the paper it was written on and donate it to public toilets
Team with R. Kelly and continue going after minors and morons
Give it to Blair or Cheney (forged of course) so they could start a war with China
Give it to Bush and tell him it's this year's economic stimulus package (he'll believe it)
Give it to Ashcroft so he could make a DMCA color coded warning system no one listens to
See there is more to the DMCA than you thought. And all along everyone was protesting... pffffft
MoFscker
The points they are trying to make are these: 1) DMCA is like Duct Tape... It works on anything, even for things its not intended to. 2) Congress became lazy when they had the DMCA drawn up, and left WAY TOO MANY Loose ends on it. 3) Something has to be done to revise/remove it until a decent Act is actually drawn up...
Just me
The DMCA was created in the spirit that new forms of electronic media were not safe from potential copyright violations, and the act did what it set out to do. Yet it also did a great deal more as special interests and corporate schmoozers managed to get their paws on the bill and turn it into more of a "dominant market player protection act" than anything else. We all agree that the amount of innovation stifled using the DMCA as justification is staggering. Yet electronic media should also be protected from the loopholes the bill originally solved. Here are a few potential solutions:
1) Remove the current DMCA and amend it such that only specific uses of media are prohibited. Allow for the use of back-engineering tools with HARSH punishments for people who knowingly use them to break copyrighted material with intent to distribute. This leaves the burden of proof with a prosecutors instead of the "guilty-til-proven- innocent" tactics of the RIAA et. al.
2) Make a specific statement for "loser pays": anyone suing under using this legislation who loses the case pays for the legal costs of both parties. Settlements don't count, and this will outright favor the bigger players, but in the American climate of "legal attrition" as a business strategy I see no other effective means of trying to relieve this aspect of the DMCA problem.
3) Allow publications on computer security to be done freely and thoroughly if tied to legitimate academic or corporate entities. Hold computer manufacturers liable if one of their components has a security flaw that causes eggregious commercial/monetary damage but which could have been fixed by repair of one of these published flaws.
4) Ensure that American laws apply only to American citizens with the express wording that products purchased in other parts of the world which belong to the consumer are theirs to do with as they please. A clause allowing rightful action to take whatever steps necessary to use that product would be nice (mod chips et. al)
Pointing fingers makes us feel good, but unless we propose alternatives and compromises, are we really doing anything but venting? Does anyone else have potential solutions/thoughts on how to resolve this issue?
As long as there is a Second Amendment, there will always be a First Amendment.
You only have to look at the name to see what a stupid piece of legislation it is:
Digital - Now whats the point of calling it digital? its just a bandwagon jumping buzzword, well back in the late 90's it was all the rage digital this digital that always with the digital it just means fucking numbers! so by calling it digital they've restricted it to only digital systems. Macrovision on VHS is not digital, therefore it doesn't count, whoops. Now as much as i like that little mistake it doesn't mean its not stupid.
Millennium - WHY!??!?! WHY!??! WTF! WHY!? it wasn't even the millennium when the law was passed! What does it mean? What possible relevance does the millennium of 2000 have to do with copy-right law and circumnavigation of digital devices? Is it just another bandwagon buzzword?? At least digital was slightly relevant!
Copy-right Act - This isn't a copy-right act, its an anti-reverse engineering act, its an anti-industrial espionage act, its an anti-freedom-of-speech-if-it-might-hurt-a-company act. A copy-right act would use the phrase "You may not copy copy-righted work that you dont own" the only thing this says your not allowed to copy is circumnavigation software from other people.
This is the sort of naming i would expect by marketing people. Marketing people have no place in politics and legislation.
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
So clearly, you neglected to actually see the facts, and read about how the DMCA has been used by name, for lawsuits which do not relate closely with the actual DMCA, and instead, became the worlds new Duct Tape. Use it on anything!
Just me
Before this discussion turns into the typical "I hate the US" and "I hate Bush" ignorant ranting, let me remind you "free speech as long as it doesn't offend" liberals that it was your boy, Clinton, who had the ultimate push in this.
Are you suggesting that the American congress might have done something rash? Something wrong?
Do you understand the implications of that allegation? Have you any idea how many lives are ended or ruined every year, due to decisions made in the US congress?
Please moderate yourself. If the US congress were prone to "error", thousands, or hundred of thousands of people have died in wain.
How small a thought it takes to fill a whole life
Can I send a note to websites where I have accounts about unauthorized copying of my personal information to third parties?
Can I use it against adware companies that take data from my computer without my permission?
Can I use it against Microsoft when their software allows a virus to copy the contents of my address book around the internet?
Soviet Russia didn't have copyright until the late 70s when it was started to go downhill...
..."to organizations like this I often wonder" if the supporters' names go into FBI files and are targets for CAPPS II etc. That chills me more than parting with the money.
what easy alternative is there for a document system to view the actual documents and not a poor HTML representation??
Shut up, bitch.
Remember, it was your guy Bush who let it stand.mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmkay?
Cinton did sign it, but it was also congress that passed in the middle of the night by a voice vote. Everybody was so busy with the stain on Lewinsky's dress that I think he signed it into law because he didn't want to create a stir. Also, he was ignorant of its true implications.
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
The DCMA, with it's idea that I can purchase a piece of equipment and then not do it as I wish, or that I cannot make copies of books or music for personal use, is just immoral. It is immoral because it allows contracts in which the end user has to agree to terms that are unknown until the end user either cannot return the product of inadvertently breaks the contract. It is immoral because it prevents the necessary innovation that encourages the free market. It is immoral because it circumvents due process.
And we cannot allow immoral acts to continue. The best defense is peaceful civil disobedience. For instance, don't buy music from RIAA labels. If they have no income, they have no money to fight legal battles. The same goes for the MPAA, game vendors, and anyone else that uses the DMCA. It won't be possible to totally shut them out, but we can at least make an effort.
I believe a lot of what goes on P2P networks is copyright infringement, but what choice do we have. The music and movies are sold in packages that violates our traditional fair use rights under the law. If i can't make a copy of the CD for my car, and the manufacturer won't give me another CD when the original get stolen or damaged, then why should I buy the CD. The manufacturer obviously has no respect for me as a customer, so I might as well return the disrespect the manufacturer and copy the music off the net.
The same goes for movies. If movies are increasingly downloaded from the net, it won't be because people don't want to buy movies. It will be because the movies we can buy are illegally packaged to prevent out fair use rights. Why should I buy a movie that is crippled when I can download a copy that honors my fair use rights. The manufacturer may hid behind a license, but it makes no difference. A contract that removes legal rights, especially when the rights are not itemized, should not be honored.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
Get real. Congress doesn't care about their constituants. All they care about is lining their own pockets! This is proven time after time after time. Congress hasn't cared about the people for decades! Why should we be surprised about the DMCA? Congress and big business saw digital as a way to TAKE BACK right that the people just assumed they were unalienable.
The irony is that all it would take is a couple of these clowns to be thrown out on their ever-widening asses because they put out a: "for sale" sign and the rest wuld be so scared shit about the gravy train pulling into the station they'd likely capitulate. But we know that just isn't going to happen. People have become so apathetic that they don't even bother to vote. Even Arnold who would be governor of CA doesn't!
I guess we do get the government we deserve though. Do nothing, and get nothing in return.
Check it out if you want a good summary of all the DMCA cases over the past five years.
/. cases, Scientology v. Internet Wayback machine, Scientology v. Google, Scientology v. /., Scientolog v. Ebay, and so many more...
Umm... EFF has skipped over all the $cientology cases,
--You will rephrase your request for me to go to hell. Goto statements are not acceptable programming constructs
The article mentions "how the DMCA has stiffled competition, innovation, scientific research, and fair use". Frankly I doubt the big media conglomerates that lobbied for the DMCA in the first place have the slightest problem with any of those consequences. If they didn't intend them, it was simply lacked the foresight to do so, not because they wouldn't have intended them if it had occurred to them.
When you're on top of the system, almost any change is seen as dangerous.
"The worst tyrannies were the ones where a governance required its own logic on every embedded node." - Vernor Vinge
Standard left wing apologist argument. Carry on.
I recall reading something a while ago about some guy who was going to publish old arcade game manuals online, but someone pulled the same sort of stunt on him. Was that one was DMCA related as well?
too bad it didn't do anything about trolls.
Consider also that the early industrial revolution in textiles in America was fueled by a design smuggled into the country from Britain.
That would be "Fukken der schitzen".
Creators of the DMCA should have their lower horn removed.
No text necessary...
Just fix it
Basicly, the 5 things that will fix the DMCA are:
1.removal of the "people can get info on who is using ISP accounts without going through the courts by alleging copyright infringment" clause
2.a change in the anti-circumvention provisions to make it clearer. (so it cant be used for crap, as we have seen in the past, particularly it should better cover things like DeCSS that have substantial non-infringing use and clearly spell out how it should be applied in these cases)
3.clearer wording of the "exemption for interoperability" part of the law to enable people to know just how far they can go (for example, does it cover the XBOX linux team who are trying to make linux interoperate with the XBOX? Does it cover the bnetd team who are trying to make bnetd interoperate with blizzard games? Does it cover the mplayer team who are trying to make their media player interoperate with thier legally purchased DVDs?
4.add an exemption like this:
The provisions of this law do not apply to someone who is creating a 3rd party clone of a physical object where that object is a consumable and gets used up in the course of its use and therefore needs replacement. (with a sutable defintion of what consitutes a "consumable")
and 5.generally re-write the law so there its a lot less open to interpretation
time to neuter the DMCA, i'll get the rusty impliments
i am the self-proclaimed king of free stuff
And as we all know... Ignorance of the law is no excuse.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
Before this discussion turns into the typical "I hate the US" and "I hate Bush" ignorant ranting, let me remind you "free speech as long as it doesn't offend" liberals that it was your boy, Clinton, who had the ultimate push in this.
I'm a liberal. I'm even a "free speech as long as it doesn't offend" liberal, if you like. As long as it doesn't offend me. I don't give a damn if it offends you.
Clinton was never my boy. Clinton was never a liberal. No liberal ever described him as liberal, that was the creation of people who were too ignorant to look up the term, or to even ask a liberal what it meant. Clinton was pro-NAFTA, kicked thousands of poor people off of the welfare rolls, and fought (and won the fight against) medical marijuana. His proposed health-care reforms were all backed by large health-care companies.
Hey, he may not have been an idiot like your boy Bush, but just because someone is very smart does not make them a liberal.
God is real unless declared integer
I'd mod that up if I had points. +1 Insightful.
you could sue anyone for just viewing a webpage. hey their browser stole information it circumvented everything on my site.. really i believe its time for everyone to ban together and do this exact thing. maybe then and only then will the gov actually realize they need to change the laws.. seriously like since im on /. right now it sparks to mind the ms lawsuit... why dont you sue ms now that youve looked over the finer details and realized they broke the DMCA by viewing your site.. its illegal everyone do it and then get the court to look at your site and sue them too for looking at your site.. and yes this is possible to do according to the DMCA.. sue everyone they are all breaking the law.. your all breaking the law now by viewing slashdot turn off your browser in fact your whole computer because you are breaking the law with anything you view on it.. and you cant use your cellphone, radio, t.v. anything at all.. heck you really cant live in the woods because if you go out there your breaking the copy-protection of survival software by technically reverse-engeering the process used to learn survival skills.... but i am serious people we need a class-action suit against the people who browse the web so that way it might really be understood how stupid the DMCA really is
Exactly The Wrong Kind Of Pirate
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
We've got a third round of DMCA lawsuits on our hands. The RIAA is using the DMCA to extort some more money for EMI and Sony...and this time they sued Jewel by mistake! RIAA Sues Jewel
I don't like the law, but people who support the law will look at EFF's example's and say "Good! This is what we need to stop".
And so this will amount to nothing. I think the DMCA will hit home if/when people finally get their new HDTV plasma screen, their new HDTV VCR, and they press "RECORD" and it doesn't work.
Then they'll care.
But for now, to the public, this is all about "stopping those hackers who started that virus a few months ago"
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
Why would you "HARSHLY" punish copyright violations by individuals? This is exactly the mindset of the RIAA. Some mob is churning out zillions of counterfeit CD's in China, they can't touch them. But some kid in NY shares over Kazaa and we're throwing the book at them (in your world) over what is an economic crime against big money interests?
Sorry, I can't agree. A person sharing CDs either with friends or over P2P is at worst performing the equivalent of chewing gum on the subway. I'm tired of "making examples" of people simply to protect these bloated RIAA dinosaurs.
I don't know why a zealot would bring up Debian when they could be bringing Gentoo into every article.
People do not associate pirates with murderers and thieves!
In just how many movies or works of literature have pirates been portrayed negatively? Even the evil ones are portrayed as capable and often honourable leaders. In Pirates of the Carribean - The bad pirate is admired by his crew, and shows cunning and leadership. The heroes are another pirate and the son of a pirate. Most characters who are non-pirates are shown as inept or cowardly.
The same applies to the Dread Pirate Roberts in The Proncess Bride, Blackbeard in Blackbeard's ghost, or Guybrush Threepwood in Secret of Monkey Island. Pirates are heroes and adventurers! Applying the term "pirate" to your enemies has the same negative connotations as calling thieves Robin Hood figures.
wtf? +3, informative for a bebbelfish translation that has every German laughing on the floor?
The best legislation money can buy.
They say the first thing to go is your penis. Well, it's either that or your brain. I forget which...
[RANT]
The press rightly continues to use the word 'piracy' for illicit copying and distribution of original materials. Some think it's a new phenomenon, and hard to square with the traditional image of the Jolly Roger and swashbuckling robbers-at-sea. The use of the word 'piracy' as signifying an unauthorized copy of a manuscript is hundreds of years old, long before modern Copyright doctrine was developed. From http://www.ninch.org/forum/price.report.html:
That's Dr. John Fell (1625-86), who was given the title of Bishop of Oxford in 1675.
[/RANT]
[
People forget that the DMCA provides ISP's with immunity to copyright suit if they take down the offending material promptly. It was essentially a negotiation where copyright owners agreed to give up their right to sue their most effecive point of control in return for getting protection against so-called black boxes.
IMHO (and I suspect I'm in the minority on this board), the Internet would be a far worse place without the DMCA. Without its protection, no ISP would allow individuals to post material - they simply could not take on the infringement risks. This ability, in turn, is what makes the Internet a unique medium.
There are several posts pointing out that "pirate" and "piracy" has been used to describe copyright infringement for quite a long time.
That's very nice.
It's also not relevant.
Various copyright industries are waging a propoganda war. They're attempting to sway public opinion; not through reasoned argument, but through deception and misdirection. (No matter what you might like to believe, downloading a song off a peer-to-peer network is not identical to shoplifting a CD.)
These industries really like the term pirate. It's a scary word. It suggests violence and severity. It suggests a very physical act.
People's views of piracy aren't entirely consistent. "Pirates are always other people, I just share my favorite songs with my friends." People don't view themselves as pirates, even if they are infringing on copyright protection, as a result people tend to not think about the increasingly strict laws.
It's extremely hard to have a reasoned debate about modern copyright law when one side is using an emotionally loaded, ambiguous term.
We should avoid the words pirate and piracy for exactly those reasons. Pick a more precise term. I happen to like the phrase copyright infringer. It clearly identifies the crime and in fact specifies what you'll be charged as if you're caught violating the law.
Search 2010 Gen Con events
Everybody was so busy with the stain on Lewinsky's dress that I think he signed it into law because he didn't want to create a stir. Also, he was ignorant of its true implications.
See? Ignorance really is bliss!
Hypocrisy is the 8th deadly sin.
Write some sort of copyrighted work on a computer. Since copying files on the computer is easy, use the following method as a copyright protection: make a hardcopy. That is, your copyright protection method is to print out a copy, and even put some copyright notice on the printed copy. Then, sue manufacturers of scanners because they create and distribute "tools" that can be used to circumvent your copyright protection method, i.e., they can make copies.
Sure, there's lots of problems with this lawsuit. There's lots of precendence in law on use of photocopiers and scanners, but I'd bet not under the DMCA. I'm not sure what the DMCA requires for "digital", but the argument here is that the work being copied is the digital file you originally wrote. The hard copy is just the "encrypted" version, and using a scanner allows someone to convert if from the encrypted version back into a non-encrypted digital version. I original thought of including photocopiers, but that would be just making copies of the encrypted files, not decrypting them, which as far as I know is ok.
True, hardcopying is not a very good copy protection scheme, but as far as I know the "quality" of the system is not considered. For example, a Microsoft case mentioned in the parent story includes "clickable end-user licenses", which only uses a few words as the "protection" method. Or the CD protection method that can be circumvented using a marker. At a minimum, hardcopies are more difficult to copy than digital files directly, so it does at least have some merit as a protection scheme.
In essense, I think many arguments used in existing DMCA cases could be used against scanners for the above scenario. And anybody could do this and sue the manufactures.
I'm not suggesting this is a good thing, but perhaps it is a useful method for protesting the DMCA by making it very public and getting the big manufacturers working to help get it changed ASAP.
"Most of what you know about Waco is govt propaganda"
The even sillier stories come from the militia wackos. Most of what I know about Waco happens to be the truth (I tend to avoid government information organs myself).
"There was VERY LITTLE reason for the US govt to attack the compound."
There was a good reason to beseige the compound: Koresh was resisting arrest. As for attacking the compound, Koresh did this himself when he torched it.
"What happened back then is exactly what is happening right now with the Iraqi war"
No, there is no cover-up of any kind going on with this. There can't be. Even if there were, the government controls very little of the media (PBS and NPR) and anyone else can and WILL say anything they want to.
"I'm on the far-left and could care less about the religious crowd."
The far-left is like any group of zealots: they favor their own religions and oppose those of others.
Seriously, why would anyone be in favor of the far-left? Their policies of giving government rulers more power, and track record of horrific genocide and mass-executions of workers (Pol Pot, Stalin, Mao, etc) is pretty bad. Even worse than that of the far-right.
"I don't give a fuck about David Koresh. It's just that the United States government trapped his followers in their compound, gassed them, and then burned them alive."
Trapped? No, the US government was trying to get them to come out.
Burned them alive? It was Koresh who did this, in his fulfulment of his made-up religion's demand for a fiery death.
"It was only after the raid failed like extfs that the drug lab and child molesting allegations were invented."
The child molestation charges were quite true. Koresh himself saw no problem with raping his child "wives".
Koresh is to blame for the whole problem. If the court does not have a case, you still submit to arrest. And you don't kill yourself and your child rape victims rather than face your day in court. Sure, Janet Reno was rather ham-handed. Of course, she was unqualified. (Clinton at the time was seeking to get a left-wing woman Atty General, not a qualified one). But the only person to blame was the one who committed the actual crimes of resisting arrest and mass murder-suicide.
"But I do not have the sheer idiotic arrogance to think that this stealing is my god-given right."
No one is talking about stealing anything. It is impossible to steal by copying or file sharing. You have basically invalidated your argument with this big (but common) blunder. If you want to argue against something, use accurate terms rather than inaccurate terms used for inflamatory effect.
However, no amount of rationalizing gives you the legal right in the eyes of any court to steal their property.
I totally agree. There is no right to steal. However, why bring up stealing at all? There is no stealing or theft involved ever, whatsoever in the situation you are talking about.
In fact, you are lying when you say that the person's argument is "But I still really really want it, so I am going to steal it" since the person never proposed theft. Duplication does not meet the requirements of theft.
"Sounds like the same sort of thing that's happening now with "Partial Birth Abortion." A medical procedure designed to safely remove a non-viable fetus is being twisted into something horrifying."
"Partial birth abortion" is a gentle term compared to "birth-time murder" which fits just as well. Partial-birth abortion is never safe: a newborn always dies during it. It is done for whims and other selfish reasons (not just because the child is not viable).
It just shows how extreme the abortion industry will be just to protect their profits.
Clinton was never my boy. Clinton was never a liberal.
He may have not been your boy, but he was a liberal, being orthodox liberal on most issues: he strongly favored abortion, he was very racist (favoring affirmative action), he wanted to greatly increase taxes, very much against the 2nd Amendment, in favor of the "fairness doctrine" to get political speech off the airwaves, he wanted to nominate Supreme Court justices to take away our rights, etc etc etc.
No liberal ever described him as liberal
Most did and do. Just like there are some conservatives who do not like Bush, but they are a minority.
Clinton was pro-NAFTA
Most liberals and conservatives are pro-NAFTA: it has overwhelming support.
fought (and won the fight against) medical marijuana.
Most liberals also oppose drug abuse.
His proposed health-care reforms were all backed by large health-care companies.
So? That does not preclude him being liberal. As long as his medical plan had the government take over and wreck health care.
We need a tort reform where if someone spills hot coffee in their own lap, and they waste the court's time with frivolous lawsuits trying to blame people who were not responsible, they would go to jail.
Hope someone does not try to post a link to an ambulance-chaser web site full of lies about the McDonald's suit. Yet, it happens all the time. (idiots: hot coffee means hot coffee! Don't spill it on your crotch, and you won't get into trouble)
It meets the requirements of theft for all essential purposes as far as reasonable discussion is concerned. If I have something I do not wish you to have, and you take posession of it one way or another, you stole that item from me. I am not "deprived" of the item anymore than I am deprived of anything when you take out a loan using a stolen identity. Duplication of currency is theft against the financial system, duplication of music is theft against the industry. If you insist that the term theft is not perfectly fitting this sentence (a common mantra) fine. It does, however, perfectly convey the nature of the transgression.
Ecce Europa - Web Design for Business
"It meets the requirements of theft for all essential purposes as far as reasonable discussion is concerned"
No, it really does not meet any.
"If I have something I do not wish you to have, and you take posession of it one way or another, you stole that item from me"
I agree with your definition. It is standard. However, it does not apply to copyright infringement. Your definition is a very good explanation of how the term "theft" does not apply here. In file sharing, no one "takes possession" of the the "something" that you have. You still have it.
"Duplication of currency is theft against the financial system"
No, it is forgery. Fraud and deception crimes != theft crimes.
"duplication of music is theft against the industry"
No, it is not, as nothing is stolen.
"If you insist that the term theft is not perfectly fitting "
It not only is not perfect: it doesn't fit well at all. It is like saying murder = arson or burglary = rape.
"It does, however, perfectly convey the nature of the transgression"
In no way does it, your example had a big logic hole.
MP3's may not TECHNICALLY be CD quality, but they (if encoded at anything reasonable, with any modern encoder) are virtually impossible to tell apart from the CD for 99.9% of the population. I suggest you take some of the blind listening tests that even compare high quality aac, mp3, ogg, etc.
Secondly, there is a huge, huge difference between theoretically for ots and lots of money, time, and effort being able to duplicate a book, vs typing the name of a song and clicking twice to download it in several minutes.
Get your music here: http://www.modarchive.com
Wh47 d1d j00 541, 31337 15n't t3h r0xor5 ne m0r3???
... and applying the rule that one should not assume malicious forethought when incompetence and stupidity offer and equally plausible explanation.
" You don't call it "trapped" when the compound is surrounded by snipers, tanks, and helicopters?
Of course not. If he would have surrendered and submitted to the usual process of his day in court, there would have been no problem.
I had a development effort halted by threats of the DMCA. I had an idea for software that would allow users access to music that they paid for. It was a simple idea and is (according to a lawer I spoke with) legal under normal US copyright law. I began coding up the program and was maybe half way done when it came to my attention that it may be illegal under the DMCA. I do not have the resources to fight a possible let allown real legal dispute like this. As a result I stopped all work and have not continued. It works like this (important information removed to keep THIS from being illegal through the DMCA, notice no code or details here). You hook up a computer to a digital video source like digital cable or sattelite dish. You tune the signal to your favorite music channel (you know those ones that play music constantly and show a simple text screen with the musician/cd/song name). The computer saves all of the streamed music and either using OCR on the video or by ripping the info out of the digital stream, attaches the info to the music file. Leave your computer, and come back in a day or two and have a 100GB music collection. Under fair use laws, this should be a legal as using a PVR to record your favorite shows for later viewing. Under the DMCA.... I don't know what. By the way, I would love to use this, so if anyone wants to risk it, by all means go for it.
No man is an island... But I wouldn't mind having a bigger moat.
I am from Sony Playstation department, you insentive dolt!