30 Days of DRM

sonofollson writes "Michael Geist, a Canadian law professor, in the middle of a 30 Days of DRM project, which is targeting the planned introduction of the DMCA in Canada. Each day, the project identifies an exception or limitation that is needed to address the danger of anti-circumvention legislation. Issues covered so far include interoperability, privacy, region coding, and reverse engineering. The project is also supporting a wiki version for broader participation."

Comments

Great idea

[magictiger]

This is a great idea. Unfortunately, the only people likely to find this are those that already know the need for exceptions to DRM laws. I hope the Canadians pass this along to their legislators and that someone actually bothers to read the blog.

Maybe if we'd had something like this before the DMCA, we could have made it a little less restrictive. (No way in hell the **AAs would have let it die)

Re:Great idea

[Safiire Arrowny]

I would prefer to have the blank media tax, and to just be left alone in peace to do what I want with my media.

Region coding? About reducing sales

[krell]

From the article: "Region coding is not about copyright, it is about market controls and a loss of consumer property rights. It should not benefit from additional copyright legal protections that would come from anti-circumention legislation."

How about the idea that region coding is all about reducing sales and increasing unauthorized duplication of DVDs? I run into so many DVDs that are not sold in any form for my region, and will never be sold for my region. That leaves me the options (a) not buying it at all, or (b) buying it and cracking it or perhaps getting a more usable pre-cracked version (barring the ability to get a DVD player that does all regions).

Re:the most important

[aussie_a]

if you were to crack the DRM on something that was in the public domain I doubt there's a court in the land that would convict you, or a record company in the land that would sue you.

I have a bridge to sell you.

Re:the most important

[EsonLinji]

But that's the problem. When you make the act of circumventing DRM a crime, it doesn't matter what content it was protecting. You still break the law by circumventing it. Which is exactly why such laws are bad. You should be able to make a copy of something in the public domain, but you can't. And don't rely on the record companies to let you off easy. It took mass negative media coverage for them to let a dead guy off the hook.

Re:the most important

[Reziac]

I agree absolutely that DRM on public domain material is inherently an oxymoron, but that doesn't make the law see it that way. IANAL, but I think it would depend on whether there is a sunset provision in the DRM law itself. As it stands now in the US, something could be out of copyright, yet it is (AFAIK) still illegal to crack the DRM. The two facets are, unfortunately, separate legal issues.

Beyond that, one would have to trust to the fairness and common sense of the courts, not always the best bet. :(

Also, it would be best if such a case went to conclusion and set a precedent (hopefully of "Death to DRM"), rather than being dismissed to be tried another day, possibly with disastrous results.

This DRM experiment is useless

[Khyber]

There will always be a way to circumvent the DMCA.

You cannot close the "analog hole" because we are purely analog-sensory beings. We cannot reliably have digital information put into our brain and decoded into a usable form without reliable biological-neurological wiring. With that simple logic, until neural wetware becomes commonplace (scary world that'll be,) the DMCA is absolute bullshit. I can simply circumvent your protection by going to a friend's house to watch a movie they bought but I never paid for. I can store that entire movie in "memory" (if I'm capable of that type of photo-auralgenic storage like other 'geniuses.') and tell others what the whole movie is about, which may/may not discourage them to see the movie, thus resulting in a loss of profit for the movie, or even after-movie DVD/VCR sales. Kiss your "unauthorized" use clause good-bye. We can hurt the **AA cause thru that means alone, and I'll bet with the current shit crop of movies coming out (Like Talladega Nights, compared to The Descent,) the sales are going to drop even further. I can simply watch a movie, tell everyone what it's all about, and they'll decide for themselves whether or not the movie is worth watching, in their opinion. And speaking technically, I didn't pay for it, so by going to a friend's house to watch a movie they paid for, I'm getting a public performance (because they explicitly state with a sign on their property "This is not private property, whatever happens here is public and sent to the police,") without paying for the rights to view the money. Now what are you going to do, RI/MPAA? Sue me for visiting a friend who happens to be showing a movie they paid for? You've tried twice already, let's go for a third strike so we can wipe you out legally.

I apologize in advance for potential double-ranting (restating the same rant twice in the same post,) but I felt the need to drive this into people's heads. Even if the general Slashdot crowd knows about this stuff, there are many others that join every day, and are rather ignorant, as I once was before I got some extra education from more knowledgable people on Slashdot. We need to keep this type of information flow happening, in my opinion. Let's keep it up so less knowledgable people have more plain-english definitions for the layman to understand, guys.