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

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.