Slashdot Mirror
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."
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.
Wu-Tang Name: Half-Cut Skeleton Get your own Wu-Na
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.
'I ain't a liar, baby, and I ain't proud I just want what I'm not allowed.' -- Violent Femmes, 36-24-36
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.
Don't be a looter...and yes, I know that it's spelled with an "A" instead of an "E".
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.
If the g'vt kept the data on you that google does you'd better believe you'd be calling it "doing evil"
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?
You may treat all information submitted above as wild speculation.
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.
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.
"Some days you just can't get rid of a bomb."
Finally, at least some of our rights are being upheld.
Karma: Segmentation fault (tried to dereference a null post)
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!)..
Rapid Nirvana
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.
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...
"Our funds have never taken part in toxic or death spiral convertible financings of any sort" -BayStar's managing partne
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.
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.
I love C++
This certainly smells of election-year politicing
/., but I'm sure somebody probably already has since I started this post.
Normally, I'd be inclined to agree, but Rep. Boucher has been championing this issue for some time now.
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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
"The words of the prophets are written on the Slashdot walls."
...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.
I've Donated to the EFF, have you?
EFF's Donation site
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.
I'm sorry but the system of equations used to determine that percentage are copyrighted. You are only entitled to the percentage.
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.
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
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...
Yam, yam, uga booga, yam, yam, yade, yade, uga booga, yam, yam, yade, yade
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.
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.