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

About time

[Marcion]

It is pretty sad that this law is even needed (researching, critiquing and reporting should never ever not be allowed), but it is passes then it will reduce some of the madness.

Re:About time

[cayenne8]

"It is pretty sad that this law is even needed..."

Well, we all know that $$$ speaks much louder than words, emails or handwritten letters to our congress-critters.

> So, is there a fund set up yet, where all of us good, fair use minded citizens, can contribute money to pay off those lawmakers that will support this? Can we use this money to buy a lobbyist to get this to the attention of the lawmakers that we in the US actually WANT this law?

Copyright

[king-manic]

I was at a Librarian IT conference and attended a seminar on copyright. They brought up a good point that if the modern restrictions on copyright had existed at the advent of the printing press or even at the advent of the book, we would not have libraries.

Preservation and access to information is the primary concern of society. Copyright is a temporary concession granted to creators to enable wider spread of information. It has morphed into a tool to protect a particular business model. DRM is insidious because it impeded archiving attempts and the DMCA is even worse because it makes such circumvention illegal. The expiry of a copyright should also expire any protection the DMCA grants and the copy right should expire in a more sensible term then 99 years.

"Thus, no one shall do to Disney what Disney did to the Brothers Grimm." -Lessig

It should be notable that most creative works build on top of existing works, like how Disney drew a lot of content and inspiration from the brothers grimm. So the current culture of copyright severely impeded creativity.

So if we wish to preserve content or if we wish for more creativity, it's important to place more meaningful limitations on copyright and to view copyright for what it is intended to be not what corporate interest want it to be.

Re:Copyright

[quanticle]

Right. The issue is that, with the lifetimes of modern media being not that long, we might get to a point where even if you were around in 2100 there might not be any legal copies of LotR to break the encryption on. That's where the issue about breaking encryption for the purposes of personal archiving comes in.

Personally objectionable content

[JustNiz]

Great! I find Personally Objectionable all the commercials, non-skippable FBI warnings, copyright notices and all the other crap you have to sit through before (or during) a movie on DVD or TV.

Re:Hellloooooo idiots, do you know who you are dea

[Just Some Guy]

we are gamers. we are people who have opinions, and we act on them.

I would be hard pressed to think of a less frightening scenario than pissing off a bunch of gamers.

Re:Hellloooooo idiots, do you know who you are dea

[WhatAmIDoingHere]

The truth is that Gamers are lazy. If we weren't, we'd be outside pretending to do what we do in video games.

If you can motivate a gamer to act they are a force to be reckoned with.

DRM expiry

[Alain Williams]

I would like to see an obligation for any corporation that releases (sells) anything that it DRM 'protected' to have to lodge an unencumbered copy with an appropriate national library. When the copyright expires the library will then make the unencumbered copy available to the public.

I will probably not see these copies released in my lifetime, but we must act to prevent these things being locked up for ever.

Re:you would be,

[Just Some Guy]

because this bunch of gamers are the customers of the gaming companies.

Gamers, as all other Slashdot demographics, are genetically incapable of boycott: "I will not ever buy from Valve again! I will not ever buy from Valve again! I will not... hey, wait, the cake is a lie! Shiny!"

Say what you want, but you know it's true.

Write your congressperson

[jhfry]

Here's what I wrote to mine:

Dear Sir,

As my congressional representative and fellow U of D Graduate, I would encourage your support for HR 1201: Freedom and Innovation Revitalizing U.S. Entrepreneurship Act of 2007.

This bill amends some serious issues in past legislation regarding the copying of copyrighted materials that include some form of copy protection measures.

It has always been a concern for the producers and publishers of audio, visual, print, and other copyright works that the public will violate their copyright and illegally distribute their product. Finally, in the "information age" technology exists which allow these copyright owners to attempt to protect their work.

History has shown, repeatedly, that these copy protection measures are not only inadequate, but can often cause limitations for legitimate use of the product. For example, I would like to create a "scratch copy" of my legitimately purchased DVD's for my children to use, or copy my music collection to my portable music player or computer.

Both of these actions are considered "fair use" by copyright law. But more recent laws, such as the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), have made it illegal to bypass the copy protection measures that have become commonplace on modern media (CD, DVD, software, etc.).

Essentially, the bill I encourage you to support would decriminalize the act of bypassing these copy protection measures so that the copyrighted work might be used for legal purposes as defined by copyright law.

I realize that the copyright holders will argue that these measures prevent mass distribution (piracy) of the protected works. However, time has shown that these measures do not deter those interested in piracy and are easily bypassed. Therefore, the only thing they actually achieve is to prevent honest customers from using the product as allowed by fair use.

One example I would like to provide is one regularly faced by educators. If a teacher would like to create a multimedia presentation that includes clips from movies, songs, or even text from an electronic book (an use that is clearly allowed under copyright law), they must first bypass copy protection measures on all of their sources... an act which requires the use of software or hardware that is illegal to produce, distribute, and use. HR 1201 resolves this discrepancy.

Thank you for your time and efforts on behalf of myself and all of those you represent.

Truly,

Joe Fry

Grammer Nazi's have fun with this, the rest of you feel free to modify it and send it to your representative:

First get the +4 for your zipcode: http://zip4.usps.com/zip4/welcome.jsp
Then visit: http://www.house.gov/writerep/