ECA Plans Games-Related DMCA Showdown

Gamespot is reporting that the Electronic Consumers Association (ECA) has picked its first legal fight since vowing to step up lobbying efforts. The organization is going head-to-head with the Electronic Software Association (ESA), a long-time backer of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), by coming out in favor of H.R. 1201 (also known as the Fair Use Act of 2007). "If it became law, the Fair Use Act would create a variety of exemptions to the DMCA's prohibitions on circumventing anti-piracy measures. The Fair Use Act would make it legal to bypass anti-piracy measures in a handful of situations, for personal archiving; for researching, critiquing, or reporting on works of substantial public interest (if that is the sole reason for the circumvention); or to skip commercial or personally objectionable content. It would also create an exemption in copyright law for people who make and distribute equipment used to bypass copyright protection (like modchips), provided the device 'is capable of substantial, commercially significant non-infringing use.'"

Comments

Re:About time

[PopeRatzo]

I feel the same way about a constitutional amendment being needed to protect free speech, but all the same, thank fucking God it's there.,

There's also a constitutional amendment requiring warrants for any sort of search of person or property and another one that says no locking someone up without a demonstration of probable cause (habeas corpus).

Those amendments aren't doing us much good at the moment, are they? There's no telling how much more damage to the Constitution a certain jug-eared dry drunk is going to do before he hands off the keys to the country to Mrs. Clinton. And I don't have much confidence in her respect for civil liberties, either.

Maybe it's time to take the i-buds out of our ears and figure out how to mess up their plans. We may not be able to stop them, but I'll be damned if I'm going to make it easier for them.

I promise, only one more vodka/cran juice and then off to bed. Wife is off teaching a symposium and I'm left alone with my paranoia and distaste for tyrants. And teh vodka, thank god.