USCO Reviewing DMCA Anti-Circumvention Clause

ahknight writes "The United States Copyright office begins its required review of the effects of the anti-circumvention portions of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act on November 2nd. This review period lasts until December 1, 2005. They will be accepting your well-thought-out opinions on the web and by mail. If you're reasonably ticked that you can't legally get around encrypted files to get at the media you've bought, start writing a coherent stance for the USCO today."

Comments

hopefully

[akhomerun]

hopefully we can get something out of this if enough people leave some good comments.

bottom line is, if i buy a DVD, i should be able to make backup copies for myself. if the media companies are going to sell a license for their media, the disc shouldn't matter, i should be entitled to that license regardless. on DVD movies, the license is for home exibition in one household, and i am following that license agreement whether i have one or 50 copies, as long as i use only one copy at a time in one household.

A Good Idea, but Let's Solve the Problem

[duerra]

While writing to the Copyright Office and expressing concern over whatever anti-circumvention technologies you would like access to is still a good idea, it's addressing symptoms, and not the problem.

Let's not be like the medical industry here. There is a proposal for cure out there. It's called HR 1201, "Digital Media Consumers' Rights Act of 2005". Write your local congressperson and get this legislation passed!

Re:A Good Idea, but Let's Solve the Problem

[Overzeetop]

What's funny is that the bulk of the law looks like a mattress labeling law ("it shall be unlawful to remove or mutilate, or cause or participate in the removal or mutilation of, any label required by this section"). What really matters is the Section 5 Fair Use amendments. In just a few lines, Rep Boucher has probably sent most of the content industry apoplectic.

Unfortunately, there is one line missing from the law: "It shall be prohibited for an entity hold the patent on both a content control method and the associated mechanism for circumvention. It shall furthermore be prohibited for any entity with a business interest in or association with a business interest in content generation or content protection to hold a patent for a protection circumvention method or mechanism."

No doubt the policy wonks in DC can craft a less drafty version, but it's going to be necessary, I believe. Macrovision generally patents both protection methods and every possible workaround they can think of before they put a "product" on the market. It would be nice to try and stop that kind of restraint.

Okay - some legitimate reasons for circumvention

[91degrees]

These are things that a lot of people actually do, rather than what a small minority of people with way too much time do:

• Make a mix CD from music on copy protected CDs.
• Copy music downloaded from iTunes to a playerthat's not an iPod.
• Copy music downloaded from other music services to a an iPod.
• Timeshift something recorded on Tivo More than a week after it was recorded.

Now, I'd quite like to be able to legally back up a DVD and various other things as well, but really quite a small number of people really care. People do, however, copy music and record TV shows, and it is perfectly legal to do this (according to the Audio Home Recording Act and the SCOTUS Betamax decision), except the DMCA makes it illegal.

Re:They won't really listen

[goldspider]

I imagine that that same cynicism prevents you from voting too.

Did you ever consider that such cynicism breeds apathy, and perpetuates the very problems you lament?

Get off your ass and take a little responsibility.

Re:Chance for change...

[sjwaste]

With all due respect to the OP, this post should not have been modded insightful.

The best that you can hope for isn't that the law will go uninforced, but that it will be enforced upon someone with the willingness to litigate it. Courts decide whether a law violates your rights, and that's what you need in this case, a suit argued well by a competent attorney in the field. It needs to go to a jury and won there. You might argue that a judge or jury doesn't understand the injustice in the law, but that's why you need a good attorney to craft the argument.

As much as you people hate trial lawyers around here (I can't say I like the ambulance chasing types either).

Re:Okay - some legitimate reasons for circumventio

[Subrafta]

Anyone with small children cares about making backup copies of DVDs. You'll care too the first time your three year old is still crying at 1 am because Dora or Peep is to scratched to play. Fragile media targeted at 3-5 year olds needes to be backed up.

Re:Chance for change...

[mengel]

As most people do, you completely misunderstand how Ghandi accomplished what he did. He got the British to leave economically. The people who got beaten and shot were the result of the British trying to enforce laws that they were passively resisting (i.e. making their own sea salt == not paying British salt taxes). Ghandi got people to stop doing the things that made the British money (paying assorted taxes, buying cloth made in British factories, etc.) to the point where it just wasn't worth it for the British to maintain their presence. And sure, some people got beaten and killed, but it was a lot fewer than would have died in a violent uprising, and a lot more effective, because it removed the politcal and economic pressure that kept the British in India.

People who think marches and protests are how nonviolence worked in India are just confused. They were simply the method to publicize the actions that made it work, and to demonstrate that the laws in question were essentially unenforcable, when violated in large groups.

People suffering from that same confusion are having war protests and anti-globalization protests here in the U.S. that are completely ineffective, because all they do is march up and down and say "we don't like this".