More Unintended Consequences of the DMCA

BrianWCarver writes "In the seven years since Congress enacted the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), examples of the law's impact on legitimate consumers, scientists, and competitors continue to mount. A new report released today from the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), 'Unintended Consequences: Seven Years Under the DMCA,' (pdf) collects reports of the misuses of the DMCA -- chilling free expression and scientific research, jeopardizing fair use, impeding competition and innovation, and interfering with other laws on the books. The report updates a previous version issued by EFF in 2003, which Slashdot also covered."

Comments

Re:schadenfreude

[MrShaggy]

I bought some old fashioned 'learn spanish while you sleep;. I put it on, and the record skipped. I woke up, and all i could do was stutter in spanish.

Assuming that it's not intended

[WillAffleckUW]

is not correct. The whole USA Patriot Act is designed, and was lifted 99 percent from a prior Security document created, with the intention of restricting American's rights of privacy and actual personal security.

Just look at the sections on wiretapping and library records - those were not created after 9/11, they were created before 9/11.

So, most of the so-called unintended consequences are incorrectly said to be unintentional, but in actual creation they were intentional.

Just like we've been spying on your telephone calls since my days in the Army, from Yakima Firing Range in Eastern Washington State. You think you had security before, but I remember walking into rooms where people thought it was fun to put a call on speaker as they listened in to some poor sap's wife talking intimitately with him.

Re:Assuming that it's not intended

[WillAffleckUW]

and yes, I know my example was from the Patriot Act, but the DCMA is a similar beastie, and thus my point.