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Fair Use Bill Introduced To Change DMCA
An anonymous reader tips us to a Washington Post blogger's note that Representatives Boucher (D-VA) and Dolittle (R-CA) today introduced the FAIR USE Act to update the DMCA to "make it easier for digital media consumers to use the content they buy." Boucher's statement on the bill says, "The Digital Millennium Copyright Act dramatically tilted the copyright balance toward complete copyright protection at the expense of the public's right to fair use..." The Post failed to note the history. Boucher has been introducing this bill for years; here are attempts from 2002 and 2003. The chances may be better in this Congress. And reader Rolling maul writes in to note Ars's disappointment with the bill for leaving the DMCA's anti-circumvention provisions intact: "Yet again, the bill does not appear to deliver on what most observers want: clear protection for making personal use copies of encrypted materials. There is no allowance for consumers to make backups of DVDs, to strip encryption from music purchased online so that it can be played anywhere, or to generally do any of the things that the DMCA has made illegal."
Not that it will pass, but it would be pleasant not to be a criminal for burning the DVDs I own for viewing on my PSP...
DN
Now lawmakers and the "content" industries can claim they've already answer criticism and given ground, without actually changing much of anything.
The party shift in Congress won't change anything regarding the DCMA or copyright. Although fair use is certainly important to many Democrats, the concentration of IP rights in the hands of a few large companies at the expense of consumer rights has been a depressingly non-partisan issue.
#!
Why? Because it's "Democrat" controlled?
Who signed the DMCA bill into law, btw?
To the tune of YMCA (this stolen from www.userfriendly.org):
Net geeks,
There's no need to feel guilt
I said, Net geeks
For the software you built
I said, Net geeks,
Cause you're not in the wrong
There's no need to feel unhappy
Net geeks,
You can burn a CD.
I said, Net Geeks,
With your fave mp3's.
You can Play them
In your home or your car.
Many ways to take them real far!
It's fun to violate the D.M.C.A
It's fun to violate the D.M.C.A
You have everything you need to enjoy
Your music with your toys!
It's fun to violate the D.M.C.A
It's fun to violate the D.M.C.A
You can archive your tunes
You can share over cable
You can annoy the record labels!
The original generic sig.
Yet again, the bill does not appear to deliver on what most observers want: clear protection for making personal use copies of encrypted materials. There is no allowance for consumers to make backups of DVDs, to strip encryption from music purchased online so that it can be played anywhere, or to generally do any of the things that the DMCA has made illegal.
"We are the United States government -- we don't DO that sort of thing!"
Moderator hint: a comment is neither "Flamebait" nor "Troll" if it is true.
I've always wondered this. The current DMCA, AFAIK, makes breaking encryption a questionable prospect, at best (unless you have permission from the encryption designers). Why should this even be protected? Shouldn't we just encourage people to use stronger encryption that isn't as easily circumvented (in effect, why are we legislating that the use of "weak" encryption is okay)?
Personally, I think the encryption itself should be the deterrent to the circumvention of the encryption, not legislation.
If we can break the encryption, too bad; use something besides Fisher Price's "My First Encryption Algorithm" next time.
Would I still be breaking the law every time I play a legally purchased DVD on my Linux-based computer using decss-derived software?
It sounds like it. It sounds like the bill wouldn't even allow you to play a DRM-encumbered CD, unless the DRM was a Sony rootkit or other security problem. Lame.
Though on the other hand, being able to say "I am breaking the law every time I watch a DVD on my computer" is a simple and clear way to demonstrate how crazy copyright has become by outlawing what is so obviously ethical behavior. Since I will still be able to say that should this bill be passed, I have an equally simple way of expressing how copyright law is still screwed up, and how this bill completely failed to fix it.
Much better than having it partially fix the main problem so that it still isn't adequate, but becomes harder to explain. To put it another way: If you're going to suck, suck hard, so the slurping noise gives you away.
The enemies of Democracy are
You could be a "criminal" under the law, but not under moral principles. As the ancient Romans said, "non omne licitum honestum", which is translated as "not everything that's legal is honest".
Apart from the basic principles of "fair use", I think lawmakers should restrain from creating unenforceable laws, because they weaken the whole principle of legitimacy of the state. Violating laws that restrict copying of digital works is ridiculously easy. Even if some people try to equate copying music and films to robbing banks, if it were as easy to rob a bank as it is to copy a DVD, I would think the whole business model of banking should be reviewed before creating stricter laws against bank robbery.
There's a great quotation by Robert Heinlein about this. In his 1965 novel "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" his character Bernardo de la Paz said: "But I will accept any rules that you feel necessary to your freedom. I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; If I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am responsible for everything I do." In digital works, this assertion is absolutely true everywhere. If the public does not accept the laws protecting "intellectual property", those laws will be broken.
Stop buying their crap. Find some other way to get entertainment.
Remember, the last Democrat who was President signed the current bill. The Democrats get a lot of money from Hollywood, so they won't be too eager to go against Hollywood's perceived interests.
"Section 1201 of Title 17 of the United States Code, in its entirety, is hereby repealed."
Schwab
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
FAIR USE = "Freedom and Innovation Revitalizing U.S. Entrepreneurship"
Somebody please shoot me.
The DMCA reform bill Boucher has proposed in previous years is the The Digital Media Consumers' Rights Act (DMCRA). FAIR USE is a different bill, with a different target for reform: removing statutory damages, encoding some temporary DMCA exemptions into permanent statute, and ensuring that dual-use technologies (that have non-infringing uses as well as being used for infringement) are legal.
"Initiative Halting Arbitrary Terms Excessively Bringing Additional Confusion and Kludginess to Resolutions, Ousting Newspeak, and Yielding a Manageable System." (or I. H.A.T.E. B.A.C.K.R.O.N.Y.M.S.)
For security, the MD5 hash of this message and sig is 09f911029d74e35bd84156c5635688c0.
The DMCA didn't make it illegal to "back up" DVDs. That has always been true of audiovisual works; the reproduction right (17 USC 106) is exclusively reserved to the copyright holder, there's no AHRA-like carveout for movies / TV shows / other A/V works, and the "backup" provisions of 17 USC 117 apply only to computer software -- MPEG2-encoded A/V content is still A/V content, not computer software. The DMCA might have made it (theoretically) harder to reproduce DVDs, what with the anti-circumvention provisions, but no 'right' or legal ability to make a backup copy of an A/V work existed before the DMCA.
geek. lawyer.
You find yourself in the enlightened position of rooting for 100% effective enforcement of any laws on the books, while still being horrified at the stupidity of the 'we have way too much money, with little of it encouraging artists' lobby.
There are some open authors and musicians and other creative types who are actually worthy of your attention who refuse to attack their fans. They show a subtle attention to your best interest that the heavy handed conglomerates can only wish to imitate
Novel theory: Modern Man evolved from psychopath
The RIAA can keep suing a few thousand people a year, and it wont mean a thing. This year's round of the flu probably stopped more music-traders by flat-out killing them than the RIAA has by their lawsuits and propaganda.
All these laws mean is that the government is making itself more and more the enemy of the people, that the government is making itself more and more contemptible and despicable.
Incidentally, do you think the guy that posted the article is aware that it was a Democratic-Party government that proposed the DMCA, Democratic-Party congressmen who gleefully passed it, and a Democratic-Party president who signed it into law? The fact that the Republicans adored it too (as if they could dislike anything that strips the people of freedoms) doesn't mean that the Ass party is going to suddenly develop some newfound love of consumer-rights.
If the government makes itself redundant and stupid, the people will ignore its laws and do whatever they want. That's just the way it's always been. And I say this as someone who lives in a city with about a dozen Pot-smoking lounges that operate completely openly because even the cops have stopped giving a shit about laws that don't matter.
>>Presidents can't veto every bill that comes across their desk you know.
Sure they can. The President is free to veto whatever he wants to. And Congress is free to overrride the President's veto with a 2/3 majority. In this case, I don't think the DMCA had the necessary level of Congressional support needed to override a veto. The highly technical nature of they bill also would have made it difficult to gin up a huge public outcry against the veto.
Clinton should have vetoed the DMCA.
We all know what to do, but we don't know how to get re-elected once we have done it
In fact what's owned, bought, and protected (or not) here is expression, not content.
If you learn that the Earth is round from watching that digital video, you're free to share that fact with anyone you like. The copyright holders can't do a thing about it.
"The Digital Millennium Copyright Act dramatically tilted the copyright balance toward complete copyright protection at the expense of the public's right to fair use..."
That's the thing, copyright was created for the public's benefit and nobody else's! It's not like rights and freedom where there's a tradeoff between mine (I can do anything!) and what they impose on you (that means I can restrict you). With copyright, it's "hey, we want more material available to us, so we will make it worth your while by giving you a short monopoly". Well, it was.