Bush Signs a New Fair-Use Bill

BostonGunNut writes "Today President Bush signed a bill that gives legal protection to companies that provide software that can automatically filter specific content from DVDs for personal use. This bill, called the Family Entertainment and Copyright Act, allows companies to provide filtering software without being sued into oblivion by Hollywood. The legislation also allows the Library of Congress to save and protect old movies and home videos that might otherwise be lost."

Comments

Fuck.

[cpt kangarooski]

Don't get me wrong -- the Orphan Works and new 110 exemption are both good, if very half-assed.

But this comes with significant new civil and criminal penalties that are just apalling.

Oh, and this has nothing whatsoever to do with fair use. The new 110 exemption is a statutory exemption. It applies regardless of fairness, if the criteria it sets forth are satisfied. The title of the /. article is a huge misnomer.

You can read it here.

The breakdown is basically:

Title I -- very very bad
Title II -- good, but not as good as it could be.
Title III -- meh
Title IV -- good for rather limited uses, but also not as good as it could be