Slashdot Mirror
Boucher's DMCRA To Get A Hearing On May 12
Mr. Firewall writes "It's been a long road since Slashdot first carried the story that Rep.
Rick Boucher (D-Va.) was speaking out about the DMCA's trampling of fair-use rights. Well, his bill (HR 107) gets a hearing this Wednesday and the multi-billion-dollar music and movie industries have called out their Big Guns to stop it. This morning an urgent message from the Professional Photographers of America arrived in my inbox characterizing Boucher's bill as 'A bill that would make it impossible for photographers to protect their work' and other lies (apparently, the RIAA and MPAA have recruited the PPA into their Axis of Evil). The alert finishes by saying that 'a strong grassroots effort combined with [our] recent lobbying efforts should be enough to keep this harmful bill locked in the subcommittee ... until Congress adjourns.' Let's give these folks a little taste of the slashdot effect and do a little 'grassroots' contacting of congresscritters ourselves." Of course, you can decide only for yourself what your thoughts are on the bill.
Figures that Slashdot would talk about a piece of proposed legislation without linking to the actual text of the bill in question...
Here's The bill's test on the Thomas system. and here's the list of 15 representatives co-sponsoring the bill.
Read the bill for yourself, then you can think for yourself about what it's going to do if passed.
From the bill's text, if it is passed this sentance would be added to the Laws of the Land:
It shall not be a violation of this title to manufacture, distribute, or make noninfringing use of a hardware or software product capable of enabling significant noninfringing use of a copyrighted work.
It's the RIAA/MPAA's nightmare and the consumer's dream... the right to defeat DRM in order to make fair use of the resulting file.
here
The Doormat
If you're not outraged, then you're not paying attention.
The full text says that people now could break DRM for non-infringment uses.
The bill doesn't really appear to have anything to do with the DMCA. All it appears to do is require cds labeled as audio cds to actually be valid audio cds. This would just prohibit copy-protected cds from being advertised as audio cds.
Read further down in the text of the bill beyond the point it talks about CDs. The last section modifies Section 1201(c) of title 17, a section that got much of its content from the DMCA. Basically, it guts much of this section by specifically allowing the use and distribution of DRM-defeating software if the goal is to enable fair use that is otherwise legal.
An interesting analysis of the DMCRA argues that the DMRCA strengthens the DMCA -- but in a good way.
Aire Libre
This hearing is before the House Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade and Consumer Protection Committee which is a subcommitte of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. It is the 27 members of this specific subcommittee that need to hear from us as they will make the decision on what to do this Wednesday.
This is a list of the subcommittee members.
E-mail each of these 27 members, especially if one of the members happens to be your representative. They hold the power right now. Later we'll worry about other votes and other members. For now, write these 27 reps! Here's a sample letter:
Dear Subcommittee member,
I am writing to ask you to support H.R. 107 this Wednesday and favorably recommend that it move on from your subcommittee. This bill is identical to one which Representatives Boucher and Doolittle introduced during the last Congressional session, so the time that this bill move forward has come.
H.R. 107, the Digital Media Consumer's Rights Act (DMCRA), restores consumers' fair use rights by amending the DMCA to allow circumvention of copy protection for non-infringing uses of digital copyrighted material. The DMCRA also specifies that it is not a violation of Section 1201 of the DMCA to manufacture, distribute, or make non-infringing use of a hardware or software product that enables significant non-infringing use of a copyrighted work, as in making back-up copies of legally purchased DVDs or other digital media.
Several provisions of The Digital Millenium Copyright Act have harmed law-abiding citizens of this country for too long. The DMCRA is a sensible change to the law that is necessary for consumers to enjoy their rights of fair use.
The content industry that opposes this bill has cried wolf before. They opposed the VCR, likening it to the Boston Strangler. We know now that technological advances are good for both consumers and industry, and that an industry scared of change should not be allowed to impede progress or consumer's rights.
I believe that if you are truly thinking of the interests of your constituents, then you will support the DMCRA. I urge you to take a stand for the public this Wednesday.
Thank You.
Like Digital Freedoms? Then donate to EFF before they're gone.
Sure. It's really quite simply, actually:
The middle school textbook answer would be: Congress divides itself into committees, which further subdivide into subcommittees. All legislation starts in one of these subcommittees. (A member can introduce a bill directly but it is then routed to the "appropriate" subcommittee, yielding the same practical result.) The subcommittee holds hearings, which are basically a chance for the monied stakeholders to inveigle and jeremiad about how the proposed legislation will cause The End of the World as We Know It. (That is, unless the monied interest would benefit from the bill, in which case its passage is deemed Vital to the National Security and Desired by All Right-Thinking People, in contrast to its opponents, who Eat Babies and Hate America.) From time to time, for amusement value, small groups who have the actual public interest at heart get to testify, too.
If the subcommittee likes the bill, it is reported up to the full committee, which more or less repeats the process but adds some pork for various Congressional districts, entirely coincidentally the ones from which the committee members were elected. Then, at the whim of the committee chair, the bill as amended is reported to the House or Senate for the almost mythical "straight up-and-down vote".
If the bill is unpalatable but embarassing to vote against -- if, for example, it's a bill banning the sale of contaminated milk to schoolchildren but you happen to have been heavily lobbied by SpolitMilkCo -- then you look for ways to kill it without a vote. As much as possible, you keep it "bottled up in committee", meaning that there are occasional hearings but the report is never written. If you wait long enough, the Congress will adjourn and all unreported bills will die of asphyxiation. That means that the pesky bill would have to be re-introduced at the next session by whatever pesky Congressperson introduced it in the first place -- and with any luck, the massive spending by the ticked off monied interests will have led to the demise of that Congressperson. Then everyone wins.
Except, of course, the actual people of the United States. But really, if they can't be bothered to donate uber-millions to defend their interests, to heck with them.
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
Now that it really does not take much effort you better write a letter or at least an email.
If you enter your state and zip code here(you shouldn't need a +4, unless your in a really gerrymandered district. You can either send an electronic message or get your representative's name. Then take that over to this page and you can see their little house page which has contact info for sending a fax, phone, or snail mail message. If you write a letter be sure to address them as Hon. or Rep. [last name] and try to be respectful and logical ie. this bill protects consumers from getting discs that do not meed the CD standard, and allows research that will improve current digital security. Also try to appeal to their desire to be bipartisan if your rep is a Republican or appeal to their party if they are Democrats. Since this is a house bill, I didn't provide the look up for your Senator. You should know which state our are in and there are two senators per state.
Also, all of these house members are up for election this year, unless they are retireing, so you might want to spend a bit of time on their page to see what they are for and against.
Degaussing scares the bad magnetism out of the monitor and fills it with good karma.
Bah, why the crappy flash intro page?
... This has no bearing on a "DRM virus" but it shows that a judge might still entertain such an arguement, though I seem to remember that the DMCA has some manner of exemption that might cover such things... maybe.
Give them something more useful to look at, like the contact page. You can tell them why this is unreasonable.
Now then, they're probably right that it would prevent them from being able to protect their works--DRM does not and has not ever worked (and hopefully will never work, since DRM working would imply that all general-purpose devices have been disabled or destroyed...)
Of course, where we disagree is whether this is a Bad Thing [TM]. Obviously, the substantial non-infringing uses (not to mention the crippling effects of DRM schemes when secure, and their futility when insecure) legitimizes the need to be able to crack DRM schemes without fearing that you might have to go to prison because you stripped out the "don't copy" bit.
I could only wish that a judge would rule, with a perverse sense of irony, that the word "effective" when discussing copyright protection devices meant that the device had to actually work (e.g. be un-circumventable), but alas, I don't think that judges are allowed to do that.
In the mean time, why don't they stick to suing people from actual copyright infringement, instead of "protecting" their works with stupidly restrictive schemes?
I mean, I'm just waiting for a "DRM Virus" which makes use of some DRM scheme or another to prevent anti-virus people from reversing or deactivating it. And lest you think I'm kidding that a provision like this could be used by the virus writer, read McClelland v. McGrath, 31 F. Supp. 616 (N.D. Ill. 1998). Even though it might be "the very definition of chutzpah," a kidnapper sued a police officer for unauthorized monitoring of his cell phone. He may not have been able to supress the evidence against him and get off of the kidnapping charge, but there were still civil penalties under 18 USC 2518(10)(a)
Micheal Moore debunks these claims on his website.