Boucher's Anti-DMCA Bill Gets High Profile Allies

Landaras writes "News.com is reporting that a newly-formed alliance called the Personal Technology Freedom Coalition is throwing their support and lobbying efforts behind Rep. Rick Boucher's (D-Va) Digital Media Consumers' Rights Act. Members of the Personal Technology Freedom Coalition include Intel, Sun Microsystems, Verizon, SBC, Qwest, Gateway and BellSouth. The EFF and the American Library Association are also in support."

Comments

I'm still skeptical though

[MikeXpop]

Could someone tell me the actual chances of this being passed?

Re:I'm still skeptical though

[zenrandom]

I'm sorry but the system of equations used to determine that percentage are copyrighted. You are only entitled to the percentage.

Hatch And Bono

[grendelkhan]

Now that Fritz Hollings (D - Disney) is gone, the only major stumbling blocks in the senate will be Senators Hatch and Bono. I think we have a shot if Rep Boucher can get this past the House.

Re:Hatch And Bono

[squarooticus]

I didn't know the U2 singer was a Senator.

Oh, you must mean this Senator Bono.

You really need to get with it.

Re:Hatch And Bono

[MoonBuggy]

Hatch generally brings up proposals notable by their insanity and is tenacious in his attempts at destroying freedoms, but his actual success rate is not so great. The strength of his ideas has gained him notability but he actually seems to hold less sway than it might appear.

Re:Hatch And Bono

[OakLEE]

It's Representative Bono. She represent's California 45th District which includes parts of East LA County, the Palm Springs area, and Riverside County. California is represented by Senators Boxer and Feinstien, who if I remember correctly are also in the pocket of the entertainment industry.

______________________________________

Re:Hatch And Bono

[CrimsonAvenger]

Sonny Bono isn't a Senator. He never was, even when he was alive. He was a Representative.

Re:Hatch And Bono

[southpolesammy]

The only reason that Sen. Hatch can pitch the ideas that he does is due to the fact Utah is so overwhelmingly Republican that as long as he wants to be in office, he will never get voted out. The end result of this is that he can pretty much say anything at all publically without fear of reprisal from his constituents.

The GOP and other right-wing/corporate leaning organizations know this and use him to pitch ideas that other Senators can not safely propose without possibly drawing the ire of their constituencies and risk getting replaced in 2/6 years. By contrast, Democrats do not have this luxury in the Senate, as there is no state in the nation that is as heavily biased towards Dems as Utah is towards Republicans, therefore you rarely ever see bills in the Senate with as extreme a left-leaning slant as Hatch's right-leaning bills.

So even if Sen. Hatch's ideas seem completely crazy to everyone, including his own party members, they do serve a purpose, which is to make the moderate conservative bills seem less crazy and outlandish, and therefore to get more credence. Coupled with the lack of an extreme liberal counterbalance to make moderate liberal bills seem more plausible, what we're left with is a permanent tilt towards the right in the Senate.

Re:Hatch And Bono

[blowdart]

Senator Cher

Singing

"Senators and congressmen
We'd hear it from the people of the town
They'd call us senators and congressmen
But every night all the lobbists would come around
And lay their money down"

Re:Hatch And Bono

[gfxguy]

So you think the entertainment industry is "right-wing/corporate leaning organizations"?

Get real. The worst offender was Hollings, a DEMOCRAT. This is not a partisan issue, there are powerful interests that support the left, and there are powerful interests that support the right.

Frankly, most of the entertainment industry (make that the majority of the media industry) supports the left, but I'll say it again, cow-towing to large, influential organizations is a NON-partisan pastime of many politicians, so suck it up and stop being so divisive by trying to find some left/right wing conspiracies in EVERYTHING.

Re:Hatch And Bono

[mapmaker]

You have a very valid point. Corruption is a non-partisan problem with our Congress. Lobbyists pretty much own our government at this point, and both parties are equally disgusting in this regard.

However, for the most part large corporations throw their money at Republicans, not Democrats, because Republicans are usually more eager to hand out tax cuts and other corporate welfare than are Democrats. And there is a corresponding amount of Republican sucking-up to large corporations in response to this phenomenon.

Re:Hatch And Bono

[wcrowe]

cow-towing ?

Yea, I had to follow behind a couple of ranchers who were cow-towing some steers to market this weekend. I could never get a chance to pass. Was stuck behind their smelly trailer for miles.

Re:Hatch And Bono

[Anonymous Coward]

You must think Democrats are the same thing as liberals. Please consider recent history: Clinton, Gore, Kerry. These are conservatives, people. Democratic conservatives running against Republican conservatives. The Democrats once had a powerful liberal wing--in the McGovern era. Now it's just Wellstone, and he's dead. The Republicans also used to have liberals--in the Nixon era--now the only liberal Republicans to be found work at the state and local level.

"Liberal" does not mean the leftmost half of any given group of politicians lined up by ideology. If that was the case, half of Nazi Germany was liberals. No, liberalism is a set of guiding principles which, at least in America, politicians have long abandoned. This leaves liberal voters with nobody to vote for, which is why Democrats still like to pretend to be liberal by rolling out Ted Kennedy like some sad liberal mascot from time to time.

Democrats are now a conservative pro-business anti-tax isolationist party with a passing interest in selected civil rights. Republicans are a conservative Christian anti-tax aggressive military party with no interest at all in civil rights. Neither are liberal.

Money Talks, Folks

[palutke]

It's time we started providing financial support for the elected officals who do the right thing. Rep. Boucher's contribution page is here.

By supporting him (and explaining why), we reinforce his commitment to protecting our copyright rights, and show his peers that there is a group of people (voters) who care enough about the issue to contribute.

Re:Money Talks, Folks

[Overzeetop]

I'm in Boucher's district and have met and talked with him personally before - he's a genuinely smart guy. My only dissappointments are that he feeds at the pork trough like eveyone else (my community has been the benficiary of about $60k in various matching grants for small projects) and that he's very party-line on general issues. Of course, I've never met a politician who doesn't have those faults, on either side.

At least according to press releases from his office he is facing a heavily (Republican Party) funded carpet-bagger in the next election. I dont' remember the fellows name, but I think he's from Florida. I'd like to say he's safe, 'cause even my far-right in-laws vote for him, but you never know. There are a lot of stupid people areound here who believe anything a TV commercial tell them, and some of them vote.

Re:Money Talks, Folks

[DarkFencer]

Though that was the original meaning of the word, carpet bagger has long been used to refer to someone who previously had little ties to a state/city/region/etc and moved there shortly before an election to run there.

Most famous recent example: Hillary Clinton - a Chicago native, who moved to Arkansas, to Washington, and then out of the blue moved to NYC to run (successfully) for US Senate.

This certainly smells of election-year politicing

[Dagny Taggert]

I think it's bold, and a move in the right direction, but it's folly to think that they media lobbies are going to let this go unmolested. They have almost unlimited funds (money we've paid for CDs and movies) to fight this.

A good start, but in the end probably ineffective

[keraneuology]

It is a good start, but in the end not much will change. Your average consumer doesn't care much about copy-protected or not-copy-protected CDs and even if they have "this product does not conform to the CD standard" in big bold letters on the cover of the latest hairball that Brittany Spears coughed up they will still buy it just because they have to own whatever it is that Brittany Spears puts out.

I am waiting for a law that says that producers have a choice: they may a) allow consumers to back up their music/movies/games or b) agree to replace on demand and without charge any CD/DVD that has been damaged and is no longer playable.

To whom should we address our letters?

[Karrde712]

Assuming that slashdotters would like to add their support in a mail-in campaign, to whom should we send our letters? Would it be best to send it to the Personal Technology Freedom Consortium, to Boucher directly, or to our own senators and representatives?

What do other slashdotters think would be the most effective action?

Re:To whom should we address our letters?

[Overzeetop]

Type up a letter and mail it everyone listed as a Representative at house.gov in your state, except your local representative. Your local Rep should get a handwritten (very neatly, thank you) letter.

You may also want to drop a line to the first sub-committee (Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet, and Intellectual Property) listed here:

http://www.house.gov/judiciary/submembers.htm

and to the first sub-committee (Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade, and Consumer Protection) listed here:

http://energycommerce.house.gov/108/subcommittee s/ Commerce_Trade_and_Consumer_Protection_Members.htm

(BTW - Mary Bono is on that last committee. You might just want to hand write a note that if she doesn't like the bill, you recommend she stick it up her...um, no, maybe that's not a good idea, on second thought)

Re:To whom should we address our letters?

[loyalsonofrutgers]

Well, the point of a mail in campaign is to sway a decision. Boucher and PTFC not only are already firmly in favor of the bill, their position is probably that which coincides with the vast majority of Slashdot readers. Therefore, a mail-in campaign directed to either of those would be completely ineffective.

As per usual, it is best to mail your own representatives in Congress. No one else's representatives have to answer to you in November, so they won't care.

Question

[Anonymous Coward]

So the question is: who has deeper pockets?

The state of American politics is at an all time low - votes are now strictly gathered by the $, either in congress or by the voting public.

The kicker? Politicians can voters on their side by taking high-profile polarizing issues (like abortion), but then vote on all other issues based upon the pocketbook of the lobbys. The DCMA and "Patriot Act" are two clear examples.

I would have never have said this before, but I'll say it now: next time, I vote for the ACLU.

About Time

[thebdj]

Well it seems like it is about time a bill would come along to solve the horrific problems created by that vile devil known as the DMCA. Now what we all need to do is write your senators and representatives. Let them know how much we want this bill to get through and how important it is to us.

If your elected officials are up for election this year iterate how important this issue is and a vote on this issue could sway your voting. The politicians are supposed to listen to their voters and we as voters need to let them know what we want. This bill and an election year may help give us more leverage when writing to our reps and senators.

The most important section...

[sploo22]

IMHO, the most important section of this bill is section 5(b)(2):

(b) FAIR USE RESTORATION- Section 1201(c) of title 17, United States Code, is amended--
(1) in paragraph (1), by inserting before the period at the end the following: `and it is not a violation of this section to circumvent a technological measure in connection with access to, or the use of, a work if such circumvention does not result in an infringement of the copyright in the work'; and

(2) by adding at the end the following new paragraph:

`(5) 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.'.

Finally, at least some of our rights are being upheld.

What can we do??

[cOdEgUru]

Instead of debating whether this would pass or what hurdles it will have to clear to pass, can we talk about what I can do to help these guys?

And yes, we can be cynical and weep all we want about how money wins in the end, but how many of us did a darn thing about it?? If someone wants to put together an Anti-DMCA rally in D.C, heck, I will be with you shoulder to shoulder..

Lets not whine about how we are defenseless against the MPAA lobby's millions, lets talk about how we plan to kick their ass!

This is similar to my argument about outsourcing.. When news break out that another firm has outsourced to India/Vietnam/China/Russia, there is a sudden outpour of anger and indignation, but once the last post is written, no one seems to care.. What we need is a permanent revolution (yes I am well aware of who said that!)..

Re:This certainly smells of election-year politici

[beacher]

I think it smells of trying to get the genie back into the bottle. Right now the Microsoft/MPAA/RIAA axis is trying their damnedest to create a culture that is entirely controlled by the media corporations. I'm glad that this bill has the backing of some serious technology players. If DRM isn't controlled in the next few years, it could spin wildly out of control.

Re:This certainly smells of election-year politici

[emtboy9]

No it doesnt.... this is something that Rep. Boucher has been working on for quite some time, and its been mentioned on slashdot quite a bit as well here, here, here, and here.

and that was just the top four in a search of old stories by score...

And you are correct, at least, in that this is a bold move, and definitely in the right direction. It is indeed a folly to think that media lobbies will just ignore this, which is why we ALL need to come together and slashdot congress both via email and snail mail to get things like this pushed all the way through.

And besides which, they may have almost unlimited funds, but we have unlimited bandwidth collectively...

Why would these companies sign on?

[bigskank]

I can understand why the EFF, the ALA, and even an underdog like Sun are signed on as supporters of this bill, but what benfits are coming to companies like Qwest, Verizon and BellSouth - all major telecom providers? These companies are spending money to fight the DMCA, but what financial benefits does the destruction of the DMCA offer them? Is Telecom innovation being hurt this much by the DMCA so much that they're willing to take up arms and fight?

Don't get me wrong, I'm happy to see the DMCA nuked. But it would seem they've found something in this bill that suits them quite nicely in a financial sense, which immediately raises my skepticism level about how positive their support really is.

Re:Why would these companies sign on?

[femto]

They are the suckers who have to wear the cost of actually policing the DMCA. Receiving take down notics, removing content, dealing with pissed off customers, loosing pissed of customers, deciding whether content really is infringing, etc. Meanwhile it costs the studio's automated web crawler and takedown notice generator $0.00001 to generate each notice.

Notice the similarity between the economics of DMCA take down notices and spam?

Re:Why would these companies sign on?

[julesh]

Read the bill. It doesn't "nuke" the DMCA. It just amends it slightly to permit you to break copy protection for purposes which are otherwise legal. And requires copy protected CDs to be labelled accurately and prominently. All the rest of the DMCA provisions aren't touched by it.

So what?

[Alexis de Torquemada]

The content lobby will just counter with a Copying Unceasingly Nurtures Terrorism (CUNT) or an Unlawful Replication Gives Al-Qaeda lots of Yen (URGAY) act. Linking copyright violations to child abuse and even terrorism is en vogue, and as long as this kind of manipulation can be used for profit, they won't cease to try. Anyway, I hope this one does make it through.

Re:This certainly smells of election-year politici

[Ian Wolf]

This certainly smells of election-year politicing

Normally, I'd be inclined to agree, but Rep. Boucher has been championing this issue for some time now.

Story 1
Story 2
Story 3
Story 4
Story 5

There are of course many more. This bill was originally introduced in 2002. This guy is the real deal.

I didn't go back far enough to get the link of his interview here on /., but I'm sure somebody probably already has since I started this post.

If the DMCA was repealed...

[Anonymous Coward]

...how many of you would really you use the new ability to copy music/movies/games just for backups? I hear a lot of rhetoric about this sometimes quoted "right" on these boards. I think many would see a bill like this to be open season on P2P sharing again.

My opinion is that DMCA is wrong, but that's because copyright is inherently protected by the law and that we should be able to perform actions along the fair use doctrine.

But I am afraid this type of law (though good) would just reopen the door for any person to just start sharing copyrighted material again. As consumers, we need to respect copyrights.

Re:If the DMCA was repealed...

[Overzeetop]

Troll, no doubt, but it's a nice opening...

You don't have small children, do you?

Have you ever seen what they can do to a DVD? Have you tried to re-purchase "The Little Mermaid" on DVD in the stores recently? Have you ever wanted to make a copy of the movie that had JUST the movie (no mandatory ads in the beginning)? Did you know that VHS tapes degrade over time and viewing (and that MacroVision prevents their copying?) If you owned a copy of Song of the South, wouldn't you like to have a backup?

Have you ever wanted to leave your original DVD ro CD in the Jukebox, where it's safe, and burn a copy to take with you on vacation?

Did you know that these rights management schemes are effectively useless against for-profit pirates (aside: I'm not one of these)? Have you considered that, with 6 MILLION, ACTIVE file sharers, that accounts for less than 0.1% of the population (aside: I'm not one of these either)?

Now, ask me again: Would these new laws really make a difference to me? Hell yes. It's a PITA to rip and recode a DVD. It's a PITA to dub a VHS tape. It's a PITA to rip and burn a backup CD. It's a trivial process to copy VHS-VHS with two standard VCRs, if no macrovision is involved. It's illegal to manufacture an interface box. It would be a trivial exercise to build a jukebox with a recordable (CD/DVD) drive and let you dub a copy. You can't do that 'cause it's illegal to manufacture such a beast.

Quit treating me like a d@mned criminal.

Re:If the DMCA was repealed...

[PsiPsiStar]

I've had a few products that I legitimatly paid for remotly disabled. I would use this new law, which says it's legal for me to crack programs that I bought, to crack the programs that I bought. Legally.

If it's illegal to pirate software, it should be at least as illegal to shut it down when it was legitimatly purchased, but it's impossible to seek cost-effective redress in court. UCITA would limit damagaes to the cost of the software, if I read it correctly, so the software company never gets punished and I'd still have to pay court costs. Companies like Microsoft have not been at all careful with how they employ the 'remote disable' feature. I want the guns to take what's mine.

Re:If the DMCA was repealed...

[ajs318]

As a non-US citizen, I am puzzled by this. Surely the very fact that you own the disc on which the material is recorded, precludes anybody from telling you what you may or may not do with it so long as that use does not adversely affect others?

I mean, fair enough: if I own a knife, that does not give me the right to stab other people with it, nor does it give me the right to use it to cut up other people's property without their say-so. If I own a DVD, I can't legally throw it through somebody's window: I would be disrupting their common law property rights by damaging a window that they own. But I can legally watch the film that is recorded on it: that is my common law property right. And regardless of whether I watch that film using a player I bought in a store; or a player I made out of common household materials; or by looking at the pits and lands, translating the zeros and ones in my head, painting pictures on sheets of card and flicking the edges with my thumb; I am acting within my right to view the picture. It is the end that counts, not the means.

I can (almost) understand a prohibition against attempting to defeat encryption techniques, but the fact is that as the rightful owner of the DVD, I am the intended recipient of the encrypted message and I may use any reasonable means at my disposal to do so. Ownership of the DVD gives me the right to defeat the encryption, just as I cannot be arrested for picking the lock of my own front door.

And this is coming from a land without a written constitution! Surely the US constitution guarantees common law property rights?

Anti-DCMA? Kinda.

[szquirrel]

Note that HP and Intel are playing both ends against the middle on this one.

I'm all for having big tough friends against the DCMA, I just wish the big tough friends could decide whether or not they're my friends.

Wouldent this money do better with the EFF

[SteakandcheeseUm]

I've Donated to the EFF, have you?

EFF's Donation site

Simple

[Sycraft-fu]

Write your representitive (senators too) and let them know your postition. This goes double if they are on the fence, or opposed to this bill. The next part is to vote out those that oppose it during the next election. Politicians will go with special intrest groups only until the general public lashes back. If they are foolish enough to go against the majority's wishes, well they won't be around to do it again.

Seriously, let them know how you feel, and if they fail to listen, vote them out (and encourage others to help in that regard.

Follow the money

[hellfire]

Always follow the money.

Verizon was hit hard by the RIAAs attempts to supoena the names of their users. It's not in Verizon's best interests to give up such names, because they make money on services, not software. The DMCA has severe effects on software and copywrited files. Verizon doesn't give a rats ass (as they should not) as to what goes across their networks, as long as people pay for the right to use those lines.

If people lose privacy and anonymity by using Verizon because they are the target of the RIAA, Verizon will lose customers. Verizon can't afford that.

Also note companies like Comcast and AOL/Time Warner who are cable companies who are NOT on that list. They provide internet services, but they are also part of larger media conglomerates that want their media content providers preserved.

Re:This certainly smells of election-year politici

[velo_mike]

I think it's bold, and a move in the right direction,

It's my opinion that it's neither. The way to fix a problem is remove it, not keep patching it up. Bad laws, the DMCA is a prime example, need to be removed. Patching it here and there will give us the same mess we have with the nightmare of drug laws.

Currently, drugs are against the law, except for some drugs, and unless you're in some states and have a medical condition, except that isn't recognized by the federal govt nor every state. Let's throw in the decriminalization movement which leaves the laws entact for certain amounts and certain other drugs, but doesn't outright permit the legal use of drugs. Follow all that? Now, do you really want fair use to look like that?

Either support the DMCA or work to abolish it entirely. This half-assed approach will, in the long run, leave us worse off than we are now, subject to a patchwork of laws and most certainly guilty of something. The only people who benefit from this is the lawyers.

Take action

[teslatug]

Please sign up and take action at EFF if you live in the US. I have used the default forms many times and I have received back many letters from my representatives even though these are just e-mails that I have sent. Specifically, on HR 107, I just received yesterday a page and a half (typed, but still) positive response from my representative. With so many slashdotters, I am sure we can make a tiny difference.

Please try it, it takes only a few seconds after you have signed up to send an e-mail on each topic that comes up.

Support the supporters

[MobyDisk]

Companies have constituents too. This is agreat opportunity to send positive feedback to companies that support the DMCRA, especially if you are a customer. If they perceive that their customers support them on this, then they will be more likely to spend money lobbying for this type of legislation since it may become a selling point in their service. A letter may make more of a difference than a vote.

Re:This certainly smells of election-year politici

[presarioD]

Rep. Boucher has been championing this issue for some time now.

Aaahhhhh democracy at it's finest! It's just like an auction, whoever bids the most gets the legislation passed!

Auctionist:Do I hear $100,000 for "Anti-DMCA Bill"
Boucher raises hand.
Auctionist: Thank you Mr. Boucher. $100,000 going once, $100,000 going twice... $500,000 by the DMCA filial-group!
Do I hear $550,000...

Witness public discourse in action!

[nanojath]

MPAA/RIAA/et al: We must impose DRM technology to prevent piracy which is ruining our business!

Everyone else: Well, you can put whatever information you want on a disk and try to sell it, but you know DRM doesn't really work so it's sort of pointless. Isn't your only option to work on interdicting commercial bootlegging, the only place you're likely to recoup a reasonable recompense without alienating your consumer base and the only real source of your legitimate copyright-violation problems anyway?

MPAA/RIAA/et al: Crap! DRM doesn't really work anyway! I know, we'll pay off congress to have a special case exception of innocent until proven guilty written into the law! DRM still doesn't work but now it's illegal to prove that in the real world! That'll show those rotten pirates!

Adobe: Arrest that durn Ruskie! He is giving a talk which is embarassing to us! Pirates, ARRRR!

Everyone else: Geez, that new legislation seems kinda excessive. It's already illegal to duplicate and distribute copyrighted materials without permission. So what good does banning tools that MIGHT be used for that purpose do? Plus, it doesn't work. DeCSS might be illegal under the DMCA, and it's one of the most ubiquitous pieces of code on the internet. It's redundant, violates the spirit of the constitution, inneffective, frequently unenforceable, and it alienates legitimate consumers of your products who want the freedom to legally use them in the way and on the equipment that is best for them!

MPAA/RIAA/et al: Oh, so you want some free music do you, you little thirteen-year-old tramp? Well here's a subpeona for you! And one for you, and you, and your little dog too! We have five dollars for each of you!

Everyone else: wow, these people are out of control. Hey, massive electronics and telecommunications business, can you give us a hand here? We spend a lot more money on you. These people are obsessed with killing innovation to protect technologies that don't work to prevent violations that don't matter and don't prevent the bootlegging that actually hurts them anyway.

Intel, Sun Microsystems, Verizon Communications, SBC, Qwest, Gateway and BellSouth, Philips Consumer Electronics North America, the Consumer Electronics Association, the American Library Association, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Consumers Union, the Consumer Federation of America, Public Knowledge, the American Foundation for the Blind, the United States Telecom Association, the Computer and Communications Industry Association... :well gosh, this situation seems non-ideal...

MPAA/RIAA/et al: Noooo! If we lose the red herring of our brave fight against piracy our shareholders might finally figure out we're just screw-ups who have been squandering their money with our insane business strategy of screwing all our customers AND the actual producers of our products at the same time!

Hello? Venture Capitalists? Have I got a deal for you...

chances are VERY high

[argoff]

You see, what's going on here is that copyright enforcement is in a world of hurt right now - and so the media industries are trying to microregulate every other industry to do the enforcement for them. Right now we are seeing a back-lash that will likely succede, because the tech companies together have far more economic clout than Hollywood. This will also likely cause all hell to break loose.

This is not new, it happened in the industrial revolution too. Unlike farming, the industrial revolution required a mobile and educated workforce. It was a disaster for the plantation system who envisioned that the entire meaning and purpose of the industrial revolution was to leverage inventions like the cotton gin to expand their plantations for unlimited growth and profit. At first they reactred by making tougher slave laws, till it got to the point you couldn't even teach a slave how to read, then they responded by trying to "force" the industrial northern states to enforce their slavery restrictions through a series of heavy handed regulations, when that went to hell the southern states tried to break off from the union and fence themselves off from the north.

Today the information age requires the free flow of information, and it is a disaster to those who rely on the copyright system whose vision of the information age was to use inventions like the internet to impose copyrights to the far corners of the earth. At first they responded by making copyrights last (effectively) forever, and imposing punishments for copyright infringement that rival those imposded for violent criminals. Then they pushed through the DMCA, to "force" all the other industries to impose copyrights via heavy handed microregulation. Now that's having problems they are trying to fence themselves off from the rest of the world by using DRM.

So watch out. SCO was a peace walk. All hell is about to break loose.

Let Companies live in the real world

[serutan]

treat the race to scramble and descramble content as a kind of market competition that should be unfettered by the DMCA--or new FTC rules

This is the most intelligent thing I've heard anybody say about the copy protection controversy.

Back in the 70s and early 80s HBO was broadcast through the air like DirecTV. People used to build their own receivers using antennas made out of coffee cans (I know -- I had one). After HBO had harassed and threatened antenna owners for several years, the courts finally ruled that the company couldn't control what people did with the broadcast signal in their own homes. HBO's next move was to scramble the signal, which was easily defeated by those with access to spectrum analyzers but largely stymied the coffee-can community. The eventual solution was for HBO to join the cable world.

I always thought this was the sensible way to handle the controversy. Make companies do business in the real world, rather than letting them reshape it to their needs. Lately our government has gone in the opposite direction, with legislators tailoring laws to suit the demands of their financial backers.

One thing that must be repeated over and over is that copyright infringement is not stealing, because copyright is not property. It's a temporary restriction imposed on everybody except the copyright holder. Copyright holders don't "own" anything, and copyright doesn't give them any extra rights, it takes rights away from everybody else for a limited time. Copyright infringement may cause financial losses, but so do lots of other things -- arson, vandalism, assault, murder, for example -- and we don't call those things theft.

It's important to keep repeating this because the content industry has essentially hijacked the concepts of property ownership and theft. They play the part of the little old lady chasing a purse snatcher, and they label critics of current copyright laws as socialists threatening the whole concept of private property.