NCC Calls for Laws to Protect User Rights

earthlingpink writes "We're used to reading articles about new and creative ways in which DRM and other such technologies can be used to prevent us from doing whatever we like with our media. The BBC offers us a glimmer of hope with a story about how the National Consumer Council (NCC) has made a report to a parliamentary inquiry in which it has highlighted the issues faced by many of us. From the article: 'Consumers face security risks to their equipment, limitations on their use of products, poor information when purchasing products and unfair contract terms.'"

Comments

Feh...

[Pig Hogger]

Given how big business has subverted the Democratic process, expect those who proposed this to be quietly removed from office...

Re:Feh...

[dada21]

Given how big business has subverted the Democratic process, expect those who proposed this to be quietly removed from office...

Big business comes directly out of the democratic process. Whenever you give 51% of the people control over the individual's freedom, you can expect there to be abuse.

Our country was never intended to be democratic -- our Congress and our Executive branches were to be strictly limited in scope and in power. They had no ability to abuse the individual just because the voting majority said to.

I don't trust democracy. It doesn't surprise me that laws are written to help the elite few at the expense of the many. If I offered you US$1 billion if you worked 40 hours a week for 2 years, would you take it? If I told you I'd put a gun to your head and take US$3 out of your pocket a year for 2 years, would you fight it?

US$3 per person x 300 million people = US$1 billion. A lobbiest that works 40 hours a week has reason to fight for his billion, while you have little reason to fight against giving up US$3 for him.

Democracy is evil, support Unanimocracy!

Re:Feh...

[bheer]

Interesting link about unanimocracy. It demonstrated quite illuminatingly why I am suspicious of armchair libertarians. There was a nice post in the previous thread about

Sorry to butt in, but I just wanted to add a little input. I think total unanimity is going too far. There WILL be some jackass who votes 'NO' on "No Murder." So basically, wherever this guy lives, murder is legal. Do you propose that everyone always move away from this fellow, or is he one of the first legally sanctioned murders?

Things only get more interesting from there. Is secret ballot allowed? (I'm assuming yes, because it's a basic feature of modern voting.) In that case, how do you know who voted against the no-murder statute? Was it your neighbour who has the hots for your wife (and you happen to live in a no-divorce state)?

Better still, if murder is outlawed in some states but not in others, how can states reach a balance between playing well with other states and protecting their own citizens? Or reach a balance between playing well with other states and punishing their guilty (who may've fled to another state?)

And-- who votes? do babies vote? do 12 year olds? do convicted felons? (or is that decidable by vote? in that case who can vote for that proposition?) Can *any* proposition be brought to the ballot (good for DDoSing the electoral system) or will it require a certain number of signatures (like Switzerland)? Since laws expire every six years, it means that laws are _constantly_ expiring. Assuming voters vote every year, how many people will have the time to study the issues behind each law in detail? Or will they vote based on gut feel? How will unpopular but economically vital laws get passed, or will unanimocracy be condemned to populist policies forever?

And -- faced with the immense roster of laws they have to vote on, how will you avoid voter apathy? How will you deal with absent/ill voters, or voters who screw up their ballot somehow?

> I don't trust democracy.

"Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time." --Winston Churchill, who'd have laughted his gut out at that proposal of yours.

And as for your disdain for lobbying-- I don't care for it myself, but that's the way the game is played. And I'd rather have lobbying done by people I know are professional lobbyists, rather than in the shadows. Kinda like I agree with how most European countries have legalized prostitution because it's better to accept and regulate a very human vice than drive it underground. (and I'm sorry for comparing lobbyists to prostitutes, I do realize it was offensive to prostitutes).

Re:Feh...

[Grym]

Big business comes directly out of the democratic process.

That's an awfully large sweeping statement. As China is proving day after day, there's nothing inherent about Capitalism that prevents non-democratic entities from participating--and competing well even.

Whenever you give 51% of the people control over the individual's freedom, you can expect there to be abuse.

Well, of course. But you're oversimplifying the systems of control within the United States. Your point might ring true if we only had a single election every four years that determined everything, but we don't. This is basic government 101 stuff. There are three branches of the federal government on different schedules for re-election. This severely limits parties from gaining and maintaining a stranglehold of power (in politics, time changes everything; a lesson Republicans are soon going to find out in the upcoming elections). Even if one party controlled the supreme court, presidency, and 51% of Congress, an extreme agenda would STILL be difficult to pursue given the likelihood of dissenters within the faction and the threat of a backlash from the electorate. Furthermore, extreme changes to the structure of the system are stymied by the fact that a change to the constitution requires 66% of the legislature and re-ratification by most states.

It's pretty well recognized that the government was designed to be inefficient and difficult to change. A slight majority of power (51%) for one faction would not equate into the catastrophic consequences you project. Come on... give the founder's a little more credit than that.

Democracy is evil, support Unanimocracy!

I hoping this is a joke, but seeing as how this is rated +5, I'll bite. What you're suggesting is little better than anarchy. In fact, in practice, it would be anarchy. Look no further than the trolls and GNAA idiots on Slashdot for the reason why. A properly dispersed, obstructionist minority could send the entire system in to a paralysis.

I sympathize with your disgust at the nature of things currently with our government. However, the real cause of the unchecked corruption by big business isn't our system of democracy or a Republican majority. After all, business was, for the most part, completely in check at one point in our history under the same basic system we have today. The devil, as always, is in the details. I'm no expert, but I would pin the problem on a few specific things such as: the lack of congressional term limits (and the rise of professional politicians), the emergence of telecommunications media, the lack of transparency and accountability within public corporations, and the lack of more stringent restrictions on campaign contributions. If any one of these flaws were to fundamentally change, I think we'd definitely see ebbing in the power of big business. Now achieving such changes in our current situation is a big problem indeed...

-Grym

What Rights?

[Freaky Spook]

I gave my rights up for a beer & a nudie mag, it seemed like a good idea at the time.

Thats what it is with all this "free" software being shoved in our face.

Newsletter

[Anonymous Coward]

In case you are not familiar with NCC, here is their latest newsletter which showcases some of the work they do:
http://www.ncc.org.uk/e-newsletter/winter2005.htm

RIAA charges you?

[Anonymous Coward]

How do you plead for all of those Pirated Britney Spears albums on your computers?

I plead insanity.

Be Proactive

[Anonymous Coward]

Things you can do to prevent DRM:

1. Not buy from people who use it, an alternitive should be available.

2. Sell products without DRM

3. Not illegally share media

4. Vote for guys who are against it.

Other Ideas would be helpful

Re:Be Proactive

[slavemowgli]

1. Buy media used (on eBay etc.) instead of new, at least for companies like Sony etc. which advocate and use DRM techniques.
2. Exercise your fair use rights:
   1. Be familiar with the rights you have.
   2. If you can legally share CDs with friends, family etc. (this is the case in many countries outside of the USA), do so.
   3. Exercise other fair use rights you might have.
3. Donate to the EFF etc.
4. Write to your MPs/representatives/senators/... and let them know how you feel about DRM. Write actual letters, too, not emails or faxes. Phone them, too.
5. Educate your non-techie friends and family about copyright, fair use, and DRM.
6. Refrain from using the term "intellectual property", which not only lumps together unrelated concepts like copyright, patents and trademarks, but also implies that these things _are_ property in the same sense that a physical object in your possession is.
7. ... and so on.

Re:Be Proactive

[kfg]

1. Buy media. . .

6. Refrain from using the term "intellectual property" . . .

As a corallary explain to them that one of the reasons for buying physical media is because it is property. They own it, not license it. They may use it as their property and its cash value is retained by them as an asset.

Do not buy "IP," buy property.

KFG

Hmmm..

[KwKSilver]

Interesting post. Had I mod points, I'd mod you up.I think the US founding fathers agreed about democracy. In a pure democracy 51% (actually 50% +1) can decree the execution of the other 49%. During the Peloponnesian War the citizens of Athens democratically voted to put all the men on one island to death & enslave the rest. Happily, it reversed itself in time to stop the mass murder. Democracy in action.

Re:Hmmm..

[dada21]

Thanks. I believe the word democracy is the worst villain in tyranny. The founding fathers likely believed it to be the case, but they were unable to battle off the big government founding fathers entirely. Hamilton and Clay were the enemies of the People, Jefferson and Washington were the enemies of the State. In the end, we're living in a world that Hamilton and Clay would have loved.

Re:Hmmm..

[NixLuver]

The problem with your protest is that the US is not - and has never been - a democracy. The vast majority of decisions are made for us by our duly elected representatives. I agree with you - completely - about democracy. However, the system in place is not responsible for the failure of our government, but the people who have abused it and abused the people of the United States.

The electoral system, I think, *is*, in large part, responsble for our predicament. The cost of campaigning is so prohibitive - and it's money that's simply gone, even if you win the election - that even if a politician starts out with the grandest of intentions and the most pristine ideals, in order to become elected, he or she has to find sponsors. And that money is not free.

The current situation makes a politician's first priority simply getting re-elected. And to get the money for that compaign, he or she must participate in quid pro quo. I don't think all politicians *start out* being lying, cheating, scheming, influence-peddling, traitorious bastards; but those qualities are insitutionalized by the system. Witness the abramofity of Washington.

Re:Hmmm..

[dada21]

I disagree completely.

Money is not the problem, power is. We gave the central government too much power, so those who wanted power run for office. If we took the power away, money wouldn't be an issue. No power to control means no reason to be corrupt.

Spends money to me is expression: it shouldn't be controlled. If Congress was severely limited in power, infinite money in bribes would get the briber nothing.

Campaign finance laws do nothing but keep incumbents in office. Want to fix the system? Abolish the FEC and return the central government to its Constitutional limits.

Re:Hmmm..

[servognome]

The Federal government had no power to regulate trade -- they were provided to make sure the States didn't set embargoes or tariffs or taxes against other States

"To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes;"

The Federal government had no power to tax unless it was a tax that would be provided equally to anyone utilizing a product or service. The Income tax is unconstitutional in every way because it is different for each person.

"The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several states, and without regard to any census or enumeration."

The Federal government had no power to perform many "duties" we now accept: FDA, USDA, FEC, SEC, IRS, FEMA, DOT, OSHA, FCC, FAA, EPA, BATF and so on and so on. Constitutionally all of these agencies are illegal.

"To make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this Constitution in the government of the United States, or in any department or officer thereof."

The US had a system with a weak central government, the Articles of Confederation, which failed.

Re:Hmmm..

[LordFnord]

Very interesting post. I have a question, though:

You'll also see that the federal budget would (a) no longer have the capacity for pork-barrel crap, and (b) would no longer have the need for such money, since it's drastically out-of-scope for that level of government.

Who pays for the big stuff?

Who pays for transport infrastructure? Motorways costs millions of dollars per kilometre to build, non-trivial sums to maintain, and require expensive engineering projects like bridges and tunnels along the way. Who looks after national defence and intelligence? Who administers things like state pensions and benefits?

I'm concerned that under your system we'd end up with a magnified version of what we in .uk call "postcode lottery", where local councils provide services to various areas and many people are in the position of having the street they live on determine things like the quality of their childrens' education or whether they'll wait one month or eighteen for their heart bypass operation.

In Canada

[CivilianHero]

'Consumers face security risks to their equipment, limitations on their use of products, poor information when purchasing products and unfair contract terms.'

Sounds like the Cellular Industry in Canada.

Back to the topic, IMO DRM encourages piracy as the "legit" has less options about what he can do with his product than the "pirate".

Re:In Canada

[Anonymous Coward]

IMO DRM encourages piracy as the "legit" has less options about what he can do with his product than the "pirate".

I think this is a very real problem with DRM today. I have personally experienced the frustrations of a copy-protected game that I legally purchased not working on my system - entirely due to the DRM on it. The solution? Download the cracked version and run it without the CD.

Did this DRM slow the pirates down at all? Nope, the cracked version was available the very same day that I bought my game. Does it inconvenience the pirates at all? Nope, they never even see the DRM - just download the cracked version and play. Who does the DRM affect? Those of us who actually buy the thing legally... Who shell out our hard-earned cash to play these games... And then discover that there's some obscure DRM incompatability with our PC.

DRM simply does not do what it is supposed to. It doesn't stop piracy, it doesn't even slow it down. All it does is inconvenience those of us who've already paid for goods.

For the time being...

[sillysnipes]

...the reality is that until companies such as EMI, Sony, etc, realise that DRM hurts their profits more than benefit, we will continue to see new and more invasive DRM technology being pushed on to us.

All we can do is veto such products and make it known to the bands that the DRM their company placed on the CD are hurting their sales.

I'd love to get some of the latest CD, but, with the copy protected emblem on the back and saying it may not actually work on pretty much any device makes me keep my money.

Laws would be nice, but it wouldn't surprise me if the industry fought such a thing all the way to the high courts. Being told what to do would be such a culture shock for the industry :)

give us a break

[grrrl]

At the end of the day, people want to use what they buy. Say you are making a home movie - and you want to use some music from the soundtrack of your favourite movie (which you have bought, on CD, online or however) to make it interesting/funny/epic, it shouldn't be a hassle to drop in an mp3 and edit it to your heart's content. If you can't, people just get frustrated and the whole era of 'easy multimedia' becomes a big joke.

I don't even get the concept of 'plays for sure' - if (eventually) all devices can play the damn song, whats the point of restricting it in the first place?

Mine mine mine!!!

[jfengel]

I am glad that there are organizations protecting consumers' rights. They form a critical balance to self-interested business who are only looking out for themselves, with considerable legal and political clout.

But pronouncements like this bore me silly. You've got companies shouting "We must protect our property!" and consumers screaming "We must protect our rights!" and so the final result is an unprincipled compromise between the two by lawmakers desperate only to stop the clamor in both ears simultaneously.

I'd be much more interested in an article which talked about principled compromises. There are all sorts of technological and legal solutions to ensure BOTH the consumers' rights to use purchased content in a variety of ways, AND the producer's rights to sell their property to all the consumers who wish to buy it at a rate the market will bear without having the simplest part of the creative process, duplicating the final result, pre-empted.

Apple, for example, has a system which allows considerable, but not complete, flexibility in the way you use the music you buy. Rather than just having the NCC declare "We want more!" I'd prefer to hear them propose a better solution, one which helps protect the producer's rights as well as their own. Until then I'm going to keep tuning out their arguments.

Re:Here's a thought

[WlfRecon]

Oh, you mean like in the case of the Sony DRM? The one where you'd hit the button to not accept and it would install the rootkit anyways? Yeah, that was helpful wasn't it?

There are already 16...

[Anonymous Coward]

NCC Calls for Laws to Protect User Rights

The NCC has already outlined 16 proposed rights; the latest, if passed, would be NCC-17. Its first amendment would be NCC-17.01.

Re:There are already 16...

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, that's enterprise for you...

In other, geeker, news

[isny]

NCC-1701 breaks the prime directive. Again.

which market?

[Anonymous Coward]

"at a rate the market will bear "

    Where does this "market" exist?? got a location, an address? The big media companies and their partners in restrictions and maximizing profits the big vendors work in a global market, you and I consume mostly locally. If we try to consume globally, well, they got these pesky laws that say "no you don't" in a ton of cases. They take the same product, offer it in different nations/areas at vastly different prices, happens all the time. Why can't I buy it where it's the cheapest "market" then? Or, they don't even offer it in nation A or B, but it's there in C, but you must jump through black or gray market hoops to get it, running up against those pesky laws they lobbied for (bribed for) and got passed.

The big companies want it ALL in their favor, ALL the time, NO exceptions, EVERY place. And they have the large dollars bribe money to make it happen. It's not total yet but it's coming. It's global scale outright racketeering, yet no one takes them to any pseudo "court" over it, because they are international in scope and just *large*. Very very large with very very large wallets. Even when caught, such as the recent Sony actual criminal rootkit case, NO ONE at Sony or their DRM/trojan subcontractors has been arrested. Hacking computers is not a "civil tort" circumstance. They make "an arrangement" with "the lawful authorities" to "take care of it". If you try to bribe a cop for a speeding ticket, you might go to jail, a good chance. Some big corp pulls the same stunt on a large scale, they get a small fine, that's it. Any fines they get are a pittance, it's just business to them, they pass the cost back onto their customers with the next product. The ONLY time you hear of any big name money bags going to jail for breaking laws-even "market" laws is when they screwed some OTHER big name moneybags person or priveleged elite group. It NEVER happens with any normal joe sixpack as the victim. NEVER.

Lessons learned. It doesn't pay to be a small time crook, you're just a criminal then. If you want to succeed, be a BIG TIME crook, then you get to be a respectable "businessman" "bureaucrat" or "politician"..

User-rights in Finland

[10Ghz]

At the start of the year, we got new copyright-legislation. And it has been a serious setback as far as user-rights are concerned. It makes it illegal to circumvent copy-protection (unless the proctection is "weak", which is clearly specified in the law). And it makes it illegal to "discuss methods of circumventing copy-protection in an organized manner". We do have the right to discuss methods of blowing up the Parliament, but we can't discuss methods of cirumventing copy-protection. Yes, it's insane. yes, it goes against the right to free speech.

The whole process of drafting the law was just sickening. Politicians did hear from few "experts". and they mostly represented the copyright-holders, consumers weren't heard at all. The record-labels made some ludicrous claims to back up the legislation (among others, they claimed that one album by one Finnish artist (his songs all have Finnish lyrics, so he doesn't really have market outside Finland) had been dowloaded 6 million times on the net. That would mean that each and every person living in Finland (about 5.1 million people) had a copy of his album, and there would still be enough copies to give citizen of Stockholm a copy as well.

Add to this the sweet irony when the minister spearheading this legislation was found to have bought a pirated copy of a Prada bag...

About a week ago, the opponents of the new legislation started a campaign aimed against the legislation. They set up a website, where they discussed methods of cirumventing copy-protection. Some participants were involved in order to earn money (they requested a payment of 5 cents for their advice). They discussed about copy-protection in organised manner for a week, and then they turned themselves to the police. They want clear information as to what is and isn't allowed under the new legislation and they wanted to show the absurdity of the law.

For those talking about US law...

[abigsmurf]

Sorry this is all about UK consumer law. The sale of goods act (1971) gives us extremely good protection against purchased goods and this petition/inquirey is all about making sure these rights remain as more and more purchases are electronic in nature. Most EULAs for instance are already illegal in the UK purely because they ask you to sign away rights they can't ask you to give up. Especially considering you can't read a EULA on the box before purchasing (and the fact that they never usually ask for someone over 18 to agree to the contract) From what I've read of US consumer law, you get very little protection comparitively and it's more designed to protect businesses than it is customers. Sorry but this would be far too huge a jump to be implemented in the US