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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."

4 of 241 comments (clear)

  1. Deja Vu Anyone? by jstockdale · · Score: 5, Informative

    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
  2. Re:Time to go. by Fulcrum+of+Evil · · Score: 4, Informative

    This is why the more powerful assault rifles and machine guns are illegal to be sold to civilians.

    Untrue on its face.

    • Machine guns are legal to own, just expensive to license.
    • All rifles are assault rifles. Only a few specific rifles were banned.
    • You can buy a .50BMG rifle if you want to.
    Traditionally, a device is legal if there are significant legal uses.
    --
    "We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
  3. All the cases? by Misch · · Score: 4, Informative

    Check it out if you want a good summary of all the DMCA cases over the past five years.

    Umm... EFF has skipped over all the $cientology cases, /. cases, Scientology v. Internet Wayback machine, Scientology v. Google, Scientology v. /., Scientolog v. Ebay, and so many more...

    --

    --You will rephrase your request for me to go to hell. Goto statements are not acceptable programming constructs
  4. Re:Time to go. by rjh · · Score: 2, Informative

    All rifles are assault rifles.

    In military formalisms, a rifle is an assault rifle if and only if it (a) is a rifle which (b) fires an intermediate-power cartridge (c) selectively (d) from a magazine.

    Rifles which fire full-power cartridges, like the M-14 and G3, are correctly termed "battle rifles", as are intermediate-caliber weapons which only fire semiautomatically.