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Pro-DRM Law May Be Coming To Australia
paxmaniac writes, "The Sydney Morning Herald reports that the Australian Federal Government will soon introduce laws making it illegal to circumvent copy control 'technological prevention measures' (or TPMs). The laws will make it illegal to modchip a console, to hack a DVD player to make it multi-region, to install DVD decoders on your PC, or to circumvent DRM in any other way. From the article: 'Anyone found to have used technology to circumvent copy control TPMs will face fines of up to $6600, while those guilty of distributing enabling devices and services to others through a variety of means face imprisonment for up to five years and possible fines of $60,500.' Australia is obliged to introduce these laws as part of it's Free Trade Agreement with the USA. Gee thanks, George!"
Is it just me or is the US using that fucking thing to basically pass laws in other countries? The Frog is coming to a boil.
to install DVD decoders on your PC
What is the point in a DVD-Rom if we can't decode DVDs? On top of that don't we pay the same royalties for the DVD-Roms we buy that DVD player buyers pay?
to hack a DVD player to make it multi-region
Even if the manufacturer makes them multi-region?
The laws will make it illegal to modchip a console
Isn't modchipping a console sort of like putting a turbo on your car? So making MY PURCHASED PRODUCT better is against the law?
You mean to say that, were I an Oz resident, I couldn't flash my DVD-drive to enable me to play my perfectly legally imported Region 1 DVDs? As a UK resident, I did exactly this so that I could get the missus a copy of Legend with the original-release Tangerine Dream soundtrack (not available in UK) as opposed to the ridiculous "director's cut" version that pollutes our senses to this day.
Isn't this just a huge step backwards in the natural global-information-culture progression? I mean, this difficult balance between the rights of consumers and the rights of creators and retailers is getting knocked all over the place with heavy-handed laws.
Piracy is already illegal, but there are many non-pirating practices that can make use of some of these technologies. Isn't this like throwing out the baby with the bathwater, when the bath was already drained anyway?
Meta will eat itself
I wonder if some day in the (hopefully not too) far future DRM and similar laws restricting the distribution of information will be looked upon in the same light as we now look upon the Catholic Church's order to Galileo to cease teaching the heretical notion of heliocentrism.
My Computer Music Tutorial Videos
Believe me, I feel your pain. We only get very badly dubbed versions of movies in bad quality here if we buy a "local" region code DVD.
But what this is about is market share and control. The distribution cartel has the world divided in certain "sectors", that pretty much correspond with the RCs. And of course, they have to pay fees to the studios according to their presumed revenues.
Those revenues rely on you being forced to buy with them, though. If someone in, say, Europe could simply buy a DVD from the US (because it's out like a month earlier, mostly due to distribution negotiations taking a few days), the distributor in Europe is losing money. Also he would lose money because, as I said in the first paragraph, the dubbing is most of the time simply outright BAD. And I prefer to listen to it in the original anyway. So what do I do? Right. I buy it a month early in a well made box instead of a dubbed version in cardboard a month later.
And this is what they want to avoid. Besides, the distri in the US only paid them for the distri rights in the US (and Canada, afaik). Should nobody in Europe pick it up because they didn't think there'd be a market, the Distri in the US would make a killing (and leave the studio ripped off). Also, should it against all odds become a huge seller, they can still sell the rights for distribution in Europe and make money again, because I (here in Europe) couldn't have bought it in the US (because of RC lock).
It's all about money and market control.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Laws like this, i.e. laws that everyone breaks, are for control. Need a warrant? Let's see, does he have a computer? Great, we got one.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
When they do sign it their economy will still be 'fucked' because the US government will not enforce the agreement unless the US benifits. For an example check out the Softwood Lumber dispute between Canada and the US. Canada had to pay the $1 Billion (US), yes one billion dollars, to the the US goverment and their lumber intrests just to get them to drop illigal duties, found illigal by all FTA tribulas, the WTO and the US federal courts. http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/softwood_lumber/
Undetectable Steganography? Yep, there's an app fo
It just controls where/when you can play a DVD. That is, it is a play control mechanism, not a copy control mechanism.
So as long as they only outlawed circumventing copy-protection mechanisms, they haven't actually affected DRM. The MPAA rhetoric basically comes back and bites them here -- by lying about what the issue is, they get a law that doesn't actually do what they want.
- "History shows again and again how nature points out the folly of men" -- Blue Oyster Cult, 'Godzilla'
What's the point in voting when all the candidates act the same way anyway? People aren't voting because there's are rarely ever any people on the ballot worth getting up to vote for. What's the point if Jack Johnson (R) gets into office instead of John Jackson (D)? They'll both make the same stupid decisions being made in the interests of big business or some special interest group anyway. We're left with is this ridiculous Rebulicrat/Demican waltz that goes on forever.
The worst part about all this is the sheer number of people who think voting democrat instead of republican or republican instead of democrat will fix anything.
You want people to vote in this farcical circus we call a democracy? Get the DMV involved and make it a requirement to have voted in the previous election in order to get your driving license renewed, or something equally retarded. The only way to get people to take part in something that's not worth doing is to either change the thing so that it *is* worth doing, or to force them into doing it.
Modern copyright is theft of culture from everyone and it retards the progress of the useful arts and sciences.
America is corporate fortress. They even conditioned (a.k.a. brainwashed) you to extinguish any protest against them as "communism" (a self-explanatory evil, no less). And as long as they can keep you frightened by the rest of the world beeing "anti-american" to various degrees, they are safe from any limitation to their power. Methinks that even if you were to regain the public, majority control over "your" government, they are so mighty today that they could buy themself another private Army, Navy and Air Force, probably someplace like Australia - not too many people to control, isolated from possible adversaries,... who knows, once robotics kick in big time... I for one welcome our new Auzzie corporate overlords!
Who signed off on the DMCA? This whole mess is on both sides of the isle, and it isn't going to change until we people show the government who they are supposed to be working for. Right now, they think they work for lobbying industries such as RIAA, MPAA, etc.
Blinding blaming Bush for everything our Goverment does gets old after a while. The DMCA was done in 1998, yet Bush has been blamed for that. EUCA (European DMCA) was done based on a trade agreement of 1996 by the WIPO.
We made a Free trade agreement with Australia that effectively says you must conformed to the decisions of this group. Remember that President Bush didn't write this all himself, he didn't sign this law himself. Australian goverment and our own congress approved this law too, John Kerry was also a huge supporter (supposidly).
But continue to call on Bush alone as if no one else but him did any of this.
America IS the corporations. They buy and sell the politicians like penny stocks. All the rest of us do is vote on the losers put up by the money men (and a few women). Do you want Exxon/Mobil or GE as your representative in congress? (Halliburton already has a lock on the executive.)