Brazil Forbids DRM On the Public Domain

nunojsilva writes "Cory Doctorow reports that the Brazilian equivalent of DMCA explicitly forbids using DRM-like techniques on works in the public domain. 'Brazil has just created the best-ever implementation of WCT [WIPO Copyright Treaty]. In Brazil's version of the law, you can break DRM without breaking the law, provided you're not also committing a copyright violation.' This means that, unlike the US, where it is illegal to break DRM, in Brazil it is illegal to break the public domain."

Comments

In Soviet Brazil

[mjwx]

Copyright laws work for the good of the people

Re:In Soviet Brazil

[Fluffeh]

Copyright laws work for the good of the people

What a funny turned upside down world. The first world nations are striving to work against the people, and the not so first world nations have this crazy idea to work for their people.

*sips coffee*

Re:In Soviet Brazil

[WoollyMittens]

But not in the USA, where is works for the good of the corporation. Like everything else.

Re:In Soviet Brazil

[cappp]

Nope. This is a proposal, not an actual change to the laws. The article on ArsTechnica makes that very explicit.

For those interested in reading the entire thing - it's available here.

Re:In Soviet Brazil

[cappp]

The proposed "Fair Use" rules in Brazil read:

Article 46. Not an insult to the use of copyright protected works, dispensing with even the express prior authorization of the owner and the need for compensation by those who use them in the following cases:
I - reproduction by any means or process of any work legitimately acquired, if made in one copy and by the copyist, for his private use and not commercial;

II - reproduction by any means or process of any work legitimately acquired, where to ensure its portability or interoperability, for private, noncommercial

III - playing in the press, news or informative articles, published in newspapers or magazines with the name of the author, if signed, and the publication of which were transcribed;

IV - to use the press, in speeches at public meetings of any kind or of any work, and when it is justified to the extent necessary to fulfill the duty to report on news events;

V - the use of literary, artistic or scientific works, phonograms and broadcasting of radio and television shops, exclusively for customer demonstration, provided that the said establishments market the media or facilities to enable its use;

VI - a theatrical performance, recitation or declamation, the audiovisual display and musical performance, provided they have no intention of profit and that the public can attend free of charge, held in the family circle or in schools, when intended for use by bodies teachers and students, parents and other persons belonging to the school community;

VII - the use of literary, artistic or scientific evidence to produce judicial or administrative;

VIII - the use in any work of short extracts from existing works, of whatever nature, or entire work, when the visual arts, where the use itself is not the main goal of the new work that does not jeopardize the operation normal work reproduced or unjustifiably prejudice the legitimate interests of authors;

IX - the reproduction, distribution, communication and the provision of public works for the exclusive use of disabled persons where the disability involves, for the enjoyment of the work by those people need to use at any particular process or still some adaptation of the protected work, and provided that no commercial purpose in the reproduction or adaptation;

X - reproduction and making available to the public for inclusion in portfolio or professional resume, to the extent required for this purpose, since he who wishes to disseminate the works by such means is one of the authors or person depicted;

XI - the use of pictures, or other form of representation of the image, custom, when performed by the object owner ordered, with no opposition from the person represented or, if dead or absent, his spouse, his ascendants or descendants;

XII - playback of lectures, conferences and classes for those to whom they are addressed, prohibited the publication, regardless of the purpose of profit, without prior written permission of whom ministered;

XIII - reproduction necessary for conservation, preservation and storage of any work, non-commercial purposes, if carried out by libraries, archives, documentation centers, museums, film and other museum institutions, to the extent required to meet its goals;

XIV - the quotation in books, newspapers, magazines or other means of communication of passages from a work for study, criticism or controversy, to the extent required for the specific purpose, stating the name of the author and origin the work;

XV - a theatrical performance, recitation or declamation, the audiovisual display and musical performance, provided they have no intention of profit, which the public can attend free of charge and they occur to the extent required for order to achieve and the following assumptions :
a) for educational purposes only;
b) with the purpose of cultural diffusion and multiplication of public opinion formation or discussion by film soci

Re:In Soviet Brazil

[Anonymous Coward]

Brazil burns a lot of ethanol (world's first sustainable bio-fuel economy), so they can be energy self-sufficient as well. How the hell will the enlightened world ever be able to embargo them into submission?

Re:In Soviet Brazil

[davester666]

That's because corporations are people too! The Supreme Court said so!

Re:In Soviet Brazil

[Sulphur]

They make their ethanol from sugar which is more efficient than corn.

Once an ethanol market is bootstrapped, one can switch to cellulose which uses no foodstuffs.

Re:In Soviet Brazil

[TubeSteak]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries'_copyright_length
Brazil: Life + 70 years

It's a joke to talk about "a fine and balanced approach to copyright law" while ignoring life + 70 years of copyright protection.
They'll be doddering seniors before anything created in their lifetime is public domain.

Re:In Soviet Brazil

[im_thatoneguy]

It's not crazy or upside down at all.

The United States Economy is built largely on IP law. We export research, science, art and knowledge to other countries which manufacture products based on that investment.

Publishers and Manufacturers just put data on disks and pages. Without IP laws standing in their way they could make DVDs for $0.01 each. They still make just as much profit as before (actually more since they can sell a DVD now for $1 and pocket $0.99 instead of $0.001 profit on manufacturing they would charge before.

They're leading the way because they have no interest in protecting intellectual property.

Re:In Soviet Brazil

[sznupi]

What a funny turned upside down world. The first world nations are striving to work against the people, and the not so first world nations have this crazy idea to work for their people.

Funny indeed, if you haven't put a second thought into actually contrasting "nation" with "people"...

Who wants you to / how did you you allow yourself to forget that they are basically the same, or at the least the former is a reflection of the latter?

Re:In Soviet Brazil

[the_B0fh]

actually, it was a court clerk, no the supreme court that said so. they just found it convenient to allow that to stand. someone should challenge this before the supreme court.

Re:In Soviet Brazil

[Chrisq]

*sips coffee*

I hope that's Brazilian and not Java

Re:In Soviet Brazil

[migla]

>They're leading the way because they have no interest in protecting intellectual property.

Also, perhaps, because they have a "commie" at the helm?

Re:In Soviet Brazil

[b4upoo]

I can not help but wonder if a work is downloaded legally in Brazil and Americans receive copies from Brazil what effect that has on copyright protections within our borders.

Re:In Soviet Brazil

[Anonymous Coward]

This is actually quite reasonable. If they were to change the length of copyright to a more suitable length of time such as 20 years from date of publication then we would have a model for the rest of the world to use.

It's a shame the USA'ian government/corporate masters wont let it happen though... :\

Re:In Soviet Brazil

[wall0159]

Maybe this is part of your point, but who's the "enlightened world" -- the US or Brazil?

Re:In Soviet Brazil

[Sique]

No. A nation is different from people. Take one of the emirates at the persian golf: Large parts of their population are not part of the nation, but they are still people living there.

Re:In Soviet Brazil

[Anonymous Coward]

First world nations? Who told you this hypocritical BS? Your zombo-tv? First world nations are always the poorest ones. Because they sweat working their ass off so that stupid lazy fat dudes from other countries who just happen to be more arrogant and have more guns could buy cheap bananas.

Re:In Soviet Brazil

[sznupi]

Of course they are part of the nation. That they might not have citizenship or that the presence of individuals might be, in principle, temporary doesn't change it; they aren't detached from the society they live in, they are an integral part of what it is.

Re:In Soviet Brazil

[ultranova]

It's a joke to talk about "a fine and balanced approach to copyright law" while ignoring life + 70 years of copyright protection.

It's a rather dark humor to realize that this is, indeed, what passes as "fine and balanced" in modern copyright law.

They'll be doddering seniors before anything created in their lifetime is public domain.

But most stars you see nowadays still burn. That's an improvement, right?

Re:In Soviet Brazil

[Joce640k]

They also have smokin' hot women.

Just saying.

Re:In Soviet Brazil

[jbssm]

It's a shame the USA'ian government/corporate masters wont let it happen though... :\

And what is the USA'ian government/corporate do, invade Brazil ... yeah right? Embargo it and the biggest agricultural production of the planet ... good luck with that? Overthrown the government ... of course, good luck with that one as well, trying to disrupt the most stable country of South America.

Re:In Soviet Brazil

[captainpanic]

It's not crazy or upside down at all.

The United States Economy is built largely on IP law. We export research, science, art and knowledge to other countries which manufacture products based on that investment.

Publishers and Manufacturers just put data on disks and pages. Without IP laws standing in their way they could make DVDs for $0.01 each. They still make just as much profit as before (actually more since they can sell a DVD now for $1 and pocket $0.99 instead of $0.001 profit on manufacturing they would charge before.

They're leading the way because they have no interest in protecting intellectual property.

You seem to suggest that Brazil does no research at all, has no universities, no industry that does any inventions, that it produces no movies, no music, and has no culture.

You're right that it seems that Brazil has little interest to protect IP. But the reason is not because they don't produce any IP themselves. The reason is that they see the added value of sharing it.

Re:In Soviet Brazil

[delinear]

While I think they're doing the right thing, I think GP is right about their motives. It's easy to see the value of sharing a resource until you reach the point that you're the primary producer of said resource, at which point the temptation is to slam the walls in place and maximise your position. Even as a producer of IP, Brazil doesn't come close to the US and would benefit far more from a relaxing of US-based IP than a tightening of Brazillian-IP, so it's to their advantage to apply a loose interpretation. Of course, the richer IP-led countries will then try and counter that either with incentives or embargoes.

Re:In Soviet Brazil

[delinear]

Well then that leaves the monetary incentive route - if you can't bully someone to your point of view there's a pretty good chance you can bribe them to it (either monetary incentives to the country or, more likely, the promise of juicy contracts to current government officials once they leave office).

Re:In Soviet Brazil

[vegiVamp]

When and where the interests of corporations supercede those of the people, those two concepts are easily contrasted.

Re:In Soviet Brazil

[Anonymous Coward]

We still import a lot of wheat from US.

And as usual with Brazil, you have to learn the good stuff about yout own country from outside. They end up doing good stuff, doesnt want anybody to know about it (I guess the only exception is breaking some med copyrights).

Since we're approaching the presidential elections, I would suspect this is a move to please someone with a little brains than people who enjoy carnavals. Or maybe it has something to do with the electronic voting machines...

Re:In Soviet Brazil

[C0vardeAn0nim0]

one: official here don't usually leave office, with rare exceptions (like former president FHC). they just run to another office. it's not considered shamefull here to run again even after leaving presidency. of all the still living ex-presidents, only FHC didn't run for some other thing. sarney and collor are senators, itamar franco was governor of minas gerais untill 2003, and is running this year for senate. so offers of jobs have little value here.

two: we have a multi-party polical system, not a bi-partisan system. so, there's lots of interest from smaller and opposition parties to simply block proposals of rulling parties, specially in controversial stuff.

three: different than US, that only have right wing and FAR right wing parties (yes, the american democtratic partic _IS_ right wing), we actually have leftist parties. this includes real socialist, workers and communist parties. and DMCA style laws are anathema to their party lines.

four: populism and anti-americanism. both traits are very strong in basilian politics, which combined with 2 and 3 makes it very hard for foreign companies to simply bribe the government. unless you're a car manufacturer, like GM or volkswagen. but even in this case they have to _beg_ the government to get what they want. only civil construction contractors, banks, farmers and alcohol (AKA ethanol) producers have free pass to bribe the government here, but those are all local folks.

Re:In Soviet Brazil

[PopeRatzo]

What a funny turned upside down world.

There has been a quiet revolution going on in South America for at least the past decade. With countries moving to the Left and succeeding. We get to hear about Hugo Chavez and what a terrible man he is, but except for the North American corporate tools that still ply their trade down there, and right-wing thugs for hire, he's pretty much beloved. We don't hear about it because the corporate press in Venezuela (and Peru, and Bolivia, and Brazil) refuse to tell the story, but these South American countries have been succeeding not using an American-style, "free-market", corporations run everything system, but with a center-Left, enlightened form of Socialism that's a lot more like Northern European success stories like Sweden and Denmark. In Brazil, for example, there's this widespread belief that the rich natural resources (like the Public Domain) actually belong to the People instead of a banker or shareholder.

In fact, "European-style" Socialism can learn a lot from some South American countries. It's still far from perfect, and as you say they're not quite "First World" yet, but they're coming on strong and unlike other places, it's happening for everyone, not just the rich.

I spend a lot of time in Brazil and elsewhere in South America. I just got back from Campinas where I went to play my cavaquinho in a samba festival and hike a bit. I have friends down there at various socioeconomic levels and ethnic backgrounds, and they all tell me the same thing.

Seriously, there's a story to be told about the South American successes that's going to take a lot of people by surprise.

Re:In Soviet Brazil

[camperdave]

I can not help but wonder if a work is downloaded legally in Brazil and Americans receive copies from Brazil what effect that has on copyright protections within our borders.

The blade falls on the neck of the importer.

Re:In Soviet Brazil

[Wooky_linuxer]

From sugar cane, you mean. In fact we have problems when the sugar price goes up in the international markets and it pays more to produce sugar from cane than ethanol. Ethanol prices goes up and they end up higher than petrol.

back on topic, I've seen nothing in the media here in Brazil regarding this. I'd like to know if this is a proposal or if has been approved already.

Re:In Soviet Brazil

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe a person can live long enough to see a few works enter the public domain, but this assumes no further extentions....

Re:In Soviet Brazil

[JasterBobaMereel]

They can make DVD's for $0.01 each because that's how much they cost ... ...and they charge the same for a Movie that was made in 1950 where in the USA the stars, director, producer all get nothing, but the publisher still gets their cut of the pure profit, since the cost of making the movie was paid off years ago

The reason they can charge more than it's worth, is because people thanks to the US movie industry thinks that's how much they are worth ...

Re:In Soviet Brazil

[Anonymous Coward]

Jeez...if I wanted to waste my time reading information I wouldn't be on /. enjoying the comments. You just ruined it for everybody, JACKASS!

Re:In Soviet Brazil

[pepeizquierdo]

I agree in general with your comment but you made a big mistake using Hugo Chavez as an example. Chavez (along with his Cuban masters) is systematically destroying Venezuela democratic system and imposing a dictatorship. And no, he is no longer pretty much loved. Again, good comment but poor example.

Re:In Soviet Brazil

[mcgrew]

You have an odd definition of "enlightened". OK, I realise you're being sarcastic, but I'll bet some won't relaise it.

Re:In Soviet Brazil

[Anonymous Coward]

That's because of pressure by the US, Argentina used to have 50, and we got 70 or 75 recently, to 'align' with the US. The minimum is 50 anyway, according to the Berne convention. We have to change *that*

Re:In Soviet Brazil

[Chowderbags]

A senior? You'll probably be dead. Life plus 70 means that if a work is created the day you were born by a 35 year old, who then lives to 80, you would have to live to 115 years old just to finally be able to use it freely (assuming there's not another retroactive extension, and so long as Disney exists, there will be). Your children will be retired by the time it's public domain. Your children's children will probably be in middle management. Your children's children's children will be entering adulthood. You might even have great-great grandchildren. Do we really need to lock up culture down to the 4th generation? Is that really reasonable?

Re:In Soviet Brazil

[hedwards]

It's easy for them to do so when they aren't the producer of the works. The US tends to be ridiculously over the top protective of such things largely because we're the world's largest exporter of copyright materials. Since it's so hard to keep copyright materials in the country of origin, there's very little risk from nations like China that blatantly ignore copyright protection on works that are produced outside the country. I suspect that Brazil probably has a more liberal view of public domain than the US does, and there's probably at least some materials that are public domain there which aren't here.

Re:In Soviet Brazil

[migla]

How is the leanings of the leadership of a country off topic in a discussion about their policies?

Re:In Soviet Brazil

[Anonymous Coward]

um sugar \= corn....

sugar cane sugar = corn sugar

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/233100/ethanol_from_corn_vs_ethanol_from_sugarcane.html?cat=27

Re:In Soviet Brazil

[PopeRatzo]

From the people I've spoken to, whether or not you "love" Chavez depends upon whether you are heavily invested in the old, failed system.

I'm not saying he's perfect, but he's created a model for a people-based system. He's a divisive character, especially outside of Venezuela. But there's no denying that he's made life a lot better for a lot of the people of his country, while improving the economic conditions overall.

Here in the US, he's terrifying the elites, because he's kind of a macho "tough-guy", "man of the people" and when he called out George W Bush at the UN, they all had to run to their fainting couches because the comparison between Bush and Chavez is not kind to Bush.

I understand his limitations. They are similar to those that FDR had in the US. When you're getting something done, you hate to give it up. But the people who are dying to see Chavez out of power have a much less positive vision for Venezuela.

Re:In Soviet Brazil

[PopeRatzo]

Chavez (along with his Cuban masters)

Now, you know perfectly well that this "Cuban masters" stuff is pure bullshit.

Re:In Soviet Brazil

[Nadaka]

Parent is not insightful. Parent is factually incorrect.

Ethanol is not sustainable. Brazil is razing millions of acres of rainforest to get a few seasons of sugarcane after that, the nutrients are used up, the top soil is washed away and they are left with a dead spot of sandy clay.

In the US we like to think we do better, but in reality we are only delaying the inevitable. Thanks to fertilizers derived from cheap oil, we can keep the soil full of nutrients (and poisons) for an extra decade or two. But at the same time, we don't have the rainfall to support the crop growth and rely on aquifers that will take hundreds of thousands of years to replenish. When the Ogallala goes dry a couple decades from now, agriculture in the midwest ends and no other nation on earth will be able to replace the US as the worlds bread basket in a sustainable way.

Re:In Soviet Brazil

[Anonymous Coward]

Except that to everybody else who read it, it was clear that what he said, "Nation", he was referring to the national government of Brazil. But I guess you'd rather drown in semantics...

Re:In Soviet Brazil

[Sique]

They are part of the people, yes. They are not part of the nation. A nation is per definitionem "people born from the same tribe" (from latin natio = birth).

Re:In Soviet Brazil

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps the narrative you are presenting is accurate, perhaps it is not. I would, of course, hope that you're right, and that whatever they're doing there is working well for the vast majority of the people there. However, I can't help but notice that you refer to these places as success stories, yet you don't appear to live there. Instead, you refer to Brazil as a place you visit in your spare time. If it's truly the success story you're describing, I'd be interested to see a comment from somebody happily living there, enjoying the fruits of all the success that a local enjoys, rather than the point of view of a tourist who uses his western means to live it up in a place he chooses not to make his home.

Of course, I am assuming all kinds of things about you, and there's nothing to can do to stop me!

Re:In Soviet Brazil

[Attila Dimedici]

I'm not saying he's perfect, but he's created a model for a people-based system. He's a divisive character, especially outside of Venezuela. But there's no denying that he's made life a lot better for a lot of the people of his country, while improving the economic conditions overall.

Venezuela is producing a lot less oil than it did when Hugo Chavez took over. One could claim that this because the oil fields are being exhausted. However, the evidence suggests that this is because exploration of new oil fields has essentially come to a stand still and existing equipment is not being properly maintained. All of the news I have seen suggest that there are increasing shortages of various basic goods (Chavez has set price ceilings below the cost of obtaining the goods).

Therefore, based on what I have seen, I will deny that he has made life significantly better for anyone other than his cronies and I believe that rather than improving economic conditions overall, he has instead made conditions worse. As to South American countries that are succeeding most of them have been moving away from the Left. Chile, for example, which earlier this year was moved from being considered a "developing country" to being considered a "developed country" (I'm not sure I am getting the terminology correct there)

Re:In Soviet Brazil

[b4dc0d3r]

Please understand a bit more before spouting this. A capitalist country with a consumer-based economy requires business protection. What's good for the company is often good for the people. Yes there are some areas in which businesses have benefitted at the expense of the individual, but there are many cases that go the opposite way. You just don't hear people complaining about them.

To digress a bit, it's like when you learn a word for the first time, and suddenly hear it everywhere. You think it's coincidence, but it's really just that you are paying more attention to it. So someone gives you an anti-consumer example, and then you're looking for it everywhere. That's what individuals complain about, and if you talk to enough individuals, that will be all you hear. A company that pays low wages is controlling costs, and is often preventing those jobs from being lost completely as they are sent overseas. It is a balance in which the individual decides whether to work for a company, and the company tries to woo the employees while not giving so much that the cost of the good or service is overpriced.

It is a difficult balance, and without business we have neither jobs nor products. So we must concede some points to them.

Before someone starts on about corporate pay and lobbyists and all that, remember that the "invisible hand of the market" takes a long time to act, and it is currently swinging in the direction of shareholders having input on pay packages (so they can determine whether profits go to a single guy who makes few decisions on his own or to dividends). And more importantly, if you owned a business, wouldn't you want to have some discretion as to what to do with your money? Subject to the whims of the market of course. We need business and business needs us, and if you don't like a business stop buying and educate your friends and neighbors.

I had a co-worker say that her daughter was caught in one of the mid-range RIAA lawsuits. I discussed some options found here, she decided to just settle. Hearing that decision, I asked her what her daughter was listening to these days (it was summer break). "All legal, paid for CDs, no downloading" she replied. By whom, I inquired, and some of the most radio-popular names spilled out. I told her, you know you're just giving more money to RIAA member companies, the same ones that just got thousands of dollars from you without going through the court system. She then told her daughter that her entertainment budget would be severely curtailed next school year and would have to make decisions about buying music in an informed manner. She was enabling anti-consumer tactics against herself, and had no idea. Ignorance, my point is, is more anti-consumer than any law or ruling or regulation could ever be, and we do it to ourselves.

Re:In Soviet Brazil

[sznupi]

IC, so it's not about having more precise outlook regarding current societies (about being part of given society, political level, etc.; for example), it's following to the letter a definition made in the times long past...

Either way, even if you really like to exclude some groups of people from de facto contributing to their surroundings...well, they just do it.

Re:In Soviet Brazil

[Thinboy00]

The "\"enlightened world\"" is supposed to be the western world.

Re:In Soviet Brazil

[Anonymous Coward]

You'd think that would be obvious to ethanol supporters. Ethanol is created from sugars. Which has more sugars, sugar (cane/beets) or corn?

Re:In Soviet Brazil

[mcgrew]

The United States Economy is built largely on IP law. We export research, science, art and knowledge to other countries which manufacture products based on that investment.

I beg to differ; we are, as ADM's advertising puts it, "breadbasket to the world." IINM our #1 export is agriculture. We export a lot of other things as well, e.g. pharmaceuticals.

And intellectual property isn't the property of the content creator. Constitutionally the content creator doesn't own the content, (s)he holds a limited time monopoly, like someone holds a limited time monopoly on a rented property. IP is owned by "we, the people" and the copyright/patent holder only holds a lease, not ownership.

Re:In Soviet Brazil

[TheLink]

"no other nation on earth will be able to replace the US as the worlds bread basket in a sustainable way."

That's OK I don't eat that much bread ;).

Re:In Soviet Brazil

[guruevi]

Once any of the companies in power can turn a better profit using anything else, they will switch to it. Whether that be corn, beets or switchgrass - somebody will plant it and produce fuel out of it. Currently however, there is a bigger profit to be made due to the scarcity of oil-based fuels which keeps fuel prices at the point where most of the market can bear it. If the costs rise any higher (as they experimented with a couple of years ago) their customers will stop using which is not good for them. Eventually (within a couple of decades) we'll be running out of accessible sources of dead dinosaurs - then and only then will they not be able to keep the prices under control and have to switch to something else. Whether the poorest of the population dies of hunger because of it, they won't care - until their main markets are starting to get too hungry to pay for the energy will they care.

Switching to electric cars won't help either - the electricity has to come from somewhere and most likely they'll be building electric generators running on oil/gas - not renewable or nuclear energy because those cannot be easily price-controlled.

Re:In Soviet Brazil

[sznupi]

Chile? Are you kidding? That's easily much worse example than the one he has chosen with Chavez - after two decades of Pinochet what happens in Chile now can easily fall under some ripples / slight swings in either direction when the landscape still adjusts itself, it doesn't mean going into either of them.

SA has moved / is moving very much to the "left"; there was not a lot of options after being held in Pinochet-like realities.

Re:In Soviet Brazil

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, first we're going to graft then into the U.S. patent system so, of course, we can sue them when necessary. Then we're going to subject them to Obama's new health care train wreck. Then, just before all the wealthy business people, who create all the jobs leave Brazil for greener pastures, we're going to increase their taxes to pay for the now swelling influx of illegal immigrants who've heard about the great deal on health care they can get in Brazil.

Once we've pushed them to the absolute brink of pure socialism and ground their economy to a nigh stand-still, once we've squashed every entrepreneur under the steam roller of the new entitlement programs (read: take from those who do and give to those who don't), once we've reduced the Brazilian patriot's zeal for his country to a wisp of fond memories and a fading remote sentiment, once all this is accomplished we're going to send Nancy Pelosi to give a public speech (of which no one with a job will show up to hear) and rattle the saber and raise the flag and proclaim the fantastic victory for the people of Brazil.

Brazil aren't you excited?

Re:In Soviet Brazil

[A Commentor]

In the U.S., having this exception doesn't really help. In the U.S. nothing new will EVER fall into the public domain. Every time anything comes close, the government passes another 20 year retro-active extension so Disney can keep making money, and making sure NOTHING NEW WILL EVER FALL INTO THE PUBLIC DOMAIN. Until something is done about retroactive laws, and the payoff of politicians by big corporations, things will not change.

Re:In Soviet Brazil

[stein.dagostini]

WRONG! We do not raze rainforest for that. Because rainforest soil is HORRIBLE for agriculture. Brasil has HUGE plains much more suited to sugar cane production. Most of legal rainforest razing is to create cattle and most of the ilegal one is for high grade wood that is sold to US and Europe black markets to poduce nice expensive furniture. Learn a bit before spelling crap here. Brasil uses ethanol as a MAINSTREAM fuel for like 30 years already. And Brasil has MORE preserved natural vegetation than US or ANY country in europe. Rainforest soil is extremely thin and not appropriated for agriculture. Brasil has a low production of wheat because here is too hot and humid for that. But we produce soy and other foods in very very large scale, IN fact Brasil is only surpassed by US in grain production.

Re:In Soviet Brazil

[twistedsymphony]

oil will always have the ability to be price competitive with alternatives... the problem is that it's only harvested and not grown, so the supply is finite and can only be harvested from certain locations, which gives those land owners an unfair advantage in comparison to the rest of the world.

Making the switch to Ethanol shouldn't be done for cost reasons, rather it should be done to gain independence from foreign oil "owners", and switch dependency to a resource that can be renewed as opposed to one that will eventually dry up.

like any manufactured product new techniques will develop that will help drive the costs down... but the first step is making the switch.

Re:In Soviet Brazil

[littlerubberfeet]

Actually not...I do stuff with intellectual property for a living, including replication management and licensing for music and film.

DVDs in retail packaging (cased, 4/0 cover, 4 color disc face, shrinked, top spine label, etc.) can cost well below 50 cents when produced in very large quantities. The last batch I had made came in at about $1.05 a disc, and was a short run for a small publisher.

As for old films: The publisher/studio is contractually bound to pay residuals/reuse on DVDs for the entire life of the copyright. SAG/DGA/WGA want their (pitifully small) cut. For the soundtrack, the AFM wants their cut. IATSE also gets a cut, which helps fund pension and health plans. This list goes on.

The point is, a certain amount of money does, in fact, flow to the original artists.

Re:In Soviet Brazil

[ppanon]

Hmm. I think the point is that for the work to be downloaded legally in Brazil, it would have had to be public domain. I think the big question is whether the work is also public domain in the US (since copyright durations sometimes differ across national boundaries). If the work was PD in both countries, then I think you would be OK since the activity that the DMCA would define as illegal, breaking the DRM, would be out of US jurisdiction. There's nothing illegal about importing a public domain work so no blade to fall on the importer. However, just to be on the safe side, that DRM cracker should stay safely in Brazil and avoid the US and avoid a Sklyarov situation

Re:In Soviet Brazil

[Anonymous Coward]

Lula's government is pretty much what you described; we have a social democracy in place, with most freedoms protected (despite some abuses of power by Lula himself, attempting to get people to vote for the "woman" he wants to succeed him). The situation in Venezuela is the exact opposite, though. People have no rights, but still cling to a charismatic leader who will "save the nation" from a generic external threat. You really diminish your point when you compare a social democrat like Lula to populist dictators like Morales, Chaves et al.

Re:In Soviet Brazil

[Anonymous Coward]

It is a difficult balance, and without business we have neither jobs nor products. So we must concede some points to them.

This is factually wrong, there were both jobs and products before the existence of "big business". You could argue that there would be significantly less jobs and/or products there were no large private companies and corporations, but in such a world tradesmen, artisans, and local shopkeepers would still exist (and to a much greater extent than they do in the US today). You are right about balance is necessary between the individual citizen and business. Yet we need to keep in mind that market-based economies can exist without any given corporation or even large-scale business in general, if they prove to be more trouble than they are worth.

Re:In Soviet Brazil

[smaddox]

I disagree. Oil will eventually be more expensive than alternatives. The amount of cheap to harvest oil is decreasing rapidly. Yes, there is a lot more oil out there, but it is much more expensive to drill for than the past billion barrels. At the same time, demand is rising as developing nations start to buy more and more cars. Unfortunately, coal will probably pick up a lot of the slack in commercial power plants (at least in the US, where coal is plentiful), but hopefully liquid coal is never implemented. I'm not sure if electric vehicles or ethanol combustion engines will dominate, but as oil prices skyrocket they will slowly begin to take over.

Re:In Soviet Brazil

[jfengel]

I only know about this in what I get from western media, but the impression I get of Chavez is that he seems to be heavily invested in a paranoid vision of the US that sounds an awful lot like what I hear from Iran and North Korea.

I'm perfectly willing to believe he's not as bad as the media makes him out to be, but I know for sure that the US is not as bad as he makes it out to be. (Or at least, what my media tells me he makes us out to be.)

My tentative conclusion so far is that he's actually running the country rather poorly, and that he succeeds only because he's got a lot of oil revenue coming in. The rest is built on jingoism and instilling fear of a nonexistent aggressor. (OK, the US has given depressing indications that this "aggression" isn't as nonexistent as I'd like, but he practically seems to be inviting it by painting us as monsters.)

It sounds like you've got better first-hand info and I'd really like to hear it.

Re:In Soviet Brazil

[commodore64_love]

>>>They make their ethanol from sugar which is more efficient than corn.

(packs suitcase)

That's it. I'm moving to brazil. They have the right co copy the CD you buy to your iPod, they have renewable energy for cars (ethanol or biodiesel), and they have women that walk-around topless as often as the men do! This is definitely the country for me. One drawback - Their average internet speed is only 3.8 Mbit/s - about 6 megabits slower than the US or EU average. Oh well. (shrug). I think the topless ladies make up for it.

Re:In Soviet Brazil

[thetagger]

Brazil is razing millions of acres of rainforest to get a few seasons of sugarcane after that, the nutrients are used up, the top soil is washed away and they are left with a dead spot of sandy clay.

Brazil is a huge country. Here are some maps for you:

http://www.rain-tree.com/graphics/map2.jpg shows where the Amazon forest is.

http://oronero.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/mapa-das-usinas-de-etanol-no-brasil.jpg Ethanol is produced in the black areas.

Re:In Soviet Brazil

[Anonymous Coward]

Copyright laws work for the good of the people

But not the politicians who write them.

Re:In Soviet Brazil

[Anonymous Coward]

Easy...threaten to exclude them from the World Cup.

Sustainable energy and policies that don't enslave the populace are nice, but fútbol is a matter of life and death.

Re:In Soviet Brazil

[lbschenkel]

Why do everybody have this idea of topless ladies in Brazil? It's considered indecent exposure, and you can go to jail for that. Europe in fact is much more liberal in this regard.

Re:In Soviet Brazil

[lbschenkel]

I agree with some points you make, but being a Brazilian who lives in Sweden and works in Denmark I can say that I have intimate knowledge of both "Brazilian-style" and "Europen-style" socialisms. Brazil can indeed teach a lot of lessons to the Europeans, but we're still far away from a place like Sweden. We are advancing, that's a fact, but in a very slow pace compared to what we could achieve according to our size and resources.

Re:In Soviet Brazil

[HiThere]

Avoiding foreign dependency should be considered a useful side benefit. The primary benefit should be the reduction of carbon impact.

OTOH, if reduction (not, unfortunately, elimination) of foreign dependencies is what will sell you, then please notice it.

Re:In Soviet Brazil

[HiThere]

What make you think the current situation can fairly be described as a balance? I certainly wouldn't characterize it in such a fashion.

I'm not sure what the proper term for a copyright should be, perhaps 17 years with one optional renewal. But I'm quite sure that if there is not strong and enforcably guaranteed provision that when the work comes out of copyright it enters public domain, then it should not be entitled to ANY copyright protection.

P.S.: For software that means that both the source code and the entire tool-chain used to create it must become available. For textual and multi-media works it would mean the approximate equivalent. The ENTIRE release free of DRM. And the tools used to build it. (Musical scores, artwork, etc. Not the physical instruments and tools themselves. This is far beyond what the copyright office currently holds or requires...but if DRM is to be allowed, that's the minimum that it would take for me to begin to consider whether a fair balance had been struck.

Re:In Soviet Brazil

[Miseph]

Your reason is a better moral reason for a person to do so, which means it's pretty much pointless to argue for. Societies do not, for the most part, adopt new things for noble reasons, especially when adoption carries pain. Arguments based on money and power are always preferable when the goal is convincing everyone to do something they won't particularly like.

To put it another way, if profit so routinely trumps morality... why would any sane person expect morality to trump profit?

Re:In Soviet Brazil

[Attila Dimedici]

Pinochet has been out of power in Chile for longer than he was in power. The reason I used Chile is because it is a clear case of a country that is rejecting Hugo Chavez and is doing very well economically as a result. Columbia is another country that is rejecting the Hugo Chavez model and has had an improved economy as a result. Venezuela on the other hand has suffered economically as a result of Hugo Chavez. How does an oil exporting country have energy shortages?

Re:In Soviet Brazil

[Steve Max]

Why would we raze the rainforest for sugar cane? Sugar cane doesn't like the soil from there. It loves the soil from the northeastern littoral and the southeastern plains. The rainforests in the northeast were razed centuries ago, and the southeast plains were never real forests. The real gold is in the north, in the Amazon; and its soil is awful for anything. Really. The rainforest only lives because dead trees/animals provide plenty of fertilization and the tall trees with deep roots prevent the rain from washing the soil. Remove the trees and the soil will be promptly washed away, and you won't be able to grow anything even for a single season. It promptly becomes a desert. This happened on the places where the trees get illegally razed for lumber, which then proceed to be exported to the USA and the EU.

Even if you could grow sugarcane in the Amazon, it would still be stupid. The consumers are in São Paulo/Rio de Janeiro/Minas Gerais/Brasília, which is on the other side of the country AND very near both the best soil for sugarcane and most of the ethanol plants. If you tried to sell your ethanol produced in the Amazon here, you would never be able to compete on price and would go bankrupt very soon.

Seriously, this "OMG Ethanol is killing the rainforests!!!" bullshit that people pass around makes me very sad. It obviously comes directly from the big petrol companies who don't like the change in their status quo, but even smart people can't tell the difference and just keep repeating it without checking their facts. The point is that a new technology is making their business model, and it looks like they aren't adapting; just spreading FUD to try to stop the unavoidable. Looks very much like another industry that the Internet loves to hate, actually.

Re:In Soviet Brazil

[Anonymous Coward]

You'd think that would be obvious to sweetener supporters. Syrup is made from sugars. Which has more sugars, sugar (cane/beets) or corn?

It's a fact of life that corn grows well in places sugar cane doesn't (I don't really know about sugar beets' range...), so when the available farmland in sugar-cane regions is saturated to a certain density, and the price of sugar/molasses/etc. hits a certain point, corn syrup makes sense. It's also a fact of life that the farming industry gets protectionist subsidies for corn, shifting things away from the efficient equilibrium point, but that's not the whole reason we see corn syrup. (Your point does stand, though; Corn ethanol is entirely due to subsidies; there's just not enough ethanol demand to exceed cane production limits -- yet.)

Re:In Soviet Brazil

[Hal_Porter]

I wonder where people could possibly get the impression that Chavez is a Castro like dictator?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alo_Presidente

Aló Presidente (English: Hello President) is a talk show hosted by Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez which is broadcast on Venezuelan state television and radio stations every Sunday at 11:00 AM.

It features Chávez addressing topics of the day and touring locations where government social welfare programs are active. There is no official end time — the show continues until Chávez is ready to stop, and often lasts about five hours. The first broadcast was made on May 23, 1999 (about three months after Chávez took office) on radio. Since then, over 330 shows have aired

Format

Government ministers are required to attend the program. They may be questioned by the president about anything, and sometimes policy — even military plans — are made on the show. During the March 2, 2008 airing, Chávez ordered a top general to send ten battalions of troops to the border with Colombia in response to a bombing by Colombian forces inside Ecuador which killed Raúl Reyes, a top member of FARC. (The battalions were not deployed; see also 2008 Andean diplomatic crisis.)

The president counts former Cuban leader Fidel Castro among his heroes, and nearly every week asks "How are you, Fidel?" For unknown reasons, the greeting is normally in English.

Re:In Soviet Brazil

[Hurricane78]

On the other hand, you actually get those 3.8 Mbit/s instead of having a “maximum” of 32 Mbit, but still only getting 2. ;)

Also, it says “average”. I guess in a big city, it will be much faster. Oh, and cheaper anyway.

Re:In Soviet Brazil

[Anonymous Coward]

Also, in Brazil they have excellent Caps Lock keys, or so I am told.

Re:In Soviet Brazil

[pepeizquierdo]

Bullshit you say? Please try googling "cuban influence chavez" for a long list of links on this issue.

Re:In Soviet Brazil

[Wolfling1]

Current intellectual property laws really only serve to expand the gap between the rich and the poor.

Sensible IP laws will always be fought by the people who gain the most from the current regime - and sadly, who are the people most financially equipped to undermine any potential change.

The bad news for Brazil is that its just a matter of time before the USA appoints another _very rich_ person to the controlling chair, and another war will be waged against imaginary WMDs - only this time it will occur in South America instead of middle east.

Viva la democracie

Re:In Soviet Brazil

[digitalunity]

Sorry to break it to you, but it won't be running on oil or gas. Maybe there will be an uptick in natural gas, especially if the natural gas can be efficiently pulled out of thawing permafrost in Alaska. I hear there is a mind boggling amount up there, but from a technology standpoint we're just not there yet.

Sadly, the majority of our increased energy demands in the next 10-15 years will be in coal. The US has huge coal deposits. Coal plants are relatively cheap to build and cheap to operate. Our ability to create new hydroelectric dams on the west coast is severely limited. Even if we could build new dams, it takes a decade to build a dam and then you're still only producing as much as the rain flow allows. Solar cell might take off but not until the technology reaches a shorter break-even point and the regulatory mess that we have now is fixed. We have a huge growth potential for solar thermal with salt or oil reservoirs feeding steam generators. It's only practical in the desert but if we invested more in +500kV transmission lines, that would take a huge strain off the western grid. Wave looks promising technologically but it doesn't scale well with current plans and nobody is really talking about where the hell we can put it. Wind is nice, but it's not at all a base-load worthy source; even the most die hard fans of wind admit it can never replace base load demand because its so unpredictable. Solar thermal peaks during the day, but with the salt or oil reservoir you can continue generating at night also. It's like a capacitor, but for heat instead of electricity.

Out of all the energy technologies we have now, coal is the only one our country can ramp up fast enough to meet a huge spike in energy consumption due to a oil availability fallout. Solar thermal could be ramped up equally as quickly but generation would all be centered around just a couple of southwestern states, doing little for anyone outside the WECC NERC region.

Re:In Soviet Brazil

[digitalunity]

I wouldn't call forbidding DRM on public domain a loose interpretation. It's a reasonable law solving a reasonable problem: media producers putting DRM on everything they sell so they can sell more.

I'm genuinely bothered by the level of disregard we have in the US over the original intentions of copyrights. It's supposed to be a trade - copy protections for a limited period traded for free public consumption when the copy protections run out. In our country, copyrights have been turned into a massive joke. There is no longer a cultural benefit for copyrights because they effectively never expire. I will be dead and gone long before any media made while I was growing up gets into the public domain and I'm not even very old.

We have so little control over our elected officials that they can't even vote for the publics best interests. They vote blindly for the corporations and we all suffer.

I think it's time for a little direct democracy.

Re:In Soviet Brazil

[sznupi]

Yeah, well, Soviets are out of my place quite a long time, too, but you still see effects / rebouncing one way or the other; certainly still far from a decently stable equilibrium (and no, it doesn't mean only "it goes way too much to the right" - for 10 years (two terms with reelection) out of the last 15 we had an ex-Party atheist president ffs, and ex-Party also having the majority in parliament; not it seems to be temporarily more towards the "right", but the results of "let" at election day are again getting better). That's to be expected such a long, either way, rule of thugs relying on external forces.

Anyway, now "clearly" rejecting Chavez (huh? Did you expect him to become S. American dictator?) is rejecting "left"? What?

Re:In Soviet Brazil

[Anonymous Coward]

Hasn't Chavez limited free speech?

I'm generally a big fan of the South American leftish governments, but I think there's a huge difference between an enlightened fellow like Lula and a potential dictator like Chavez. Chavez isn't all bad, but he certainly likes to hang out with people who are, and sometimes seems to think everything the US does is automatically bad, even stuff like free speech and democracy.

On the short term, he may be better than the direct alternative, but in the long run, I think Venezuela really needs a more liberal government (though still a bit left-of-center) if it wants to avoid turning into a really scary country.

I see Lula and Chavez as two extremes, with the other South American socialist governments (Bolivia, Peru) somewhere in between. I hope the Brazilian example shines enough that the others will follow that.

Re:In Soviet Brazil

[Attila Dimedici]

Chavez is promoting a particular approach to government and several Latin American countries have leaders who have aligned themselves with his approach (the movement that the poster I replied to was referring to). I was pointing out that the countries where positive things are happening (economically as well as otherwise) are led by people who are taking a completely different approach to Chavez' "people-based" system (which I do not believe is actually people-based at all).

Re:In Soviet Brazil

[Sique]

No, just pointing out that I am (following your definiton) member of several nations, living abroad and having relatives in several countries. According to you I am currently U.S. american, German, Austrian and Brazilian.

Re:In Soviet Brazil

[Phoghat]

Retired and looking to move someplace that allows me to live well on my fixed income, I'm looking at South America right now. At the moment Brazil or Ecuador are up for consideration

Re:In Soviet Brazil

[Rato Ruter]

Come on for regular web surfing thats enough! For porn surfing just watch through the windows! But seriously, most of our women dont walk around naked.

In Soviet Brazil, you break DRM!

[Anonymous Coward]

Basically?

Seems reasonable

[Anonymous Coward]

Seems reasonable enough on its surface, but is there an Amazon.br I can buy everything through?

oh so its still illegal?

[Anonymous Coward]

This means that, unlike the US, where it is illegal to break DRM, in Brazil it is illegal to break the public domain.

proof-read...

Re:oh so its still illegal?

[Anonymous Coward]

I assume it simply meant it is illegal to move public domain works into a form that gives IP rights over it.

Including _fair use_!

[Mathinker]

This is a masterful inversion of the motivation behind the treaty which more or less makes it impossible to implement any kind of reasonable (in the eyes of the likes of **AAs) DRM --- because the DRM has to enable at least limited copying since fair use/dealing is one of the exceptions the DRM has to enable. If everyone can copy X seconds out of of a work (X > 0), then if enough people join forces, they can copy a work of any finite length.

Re:Including _fair use_!

[Mathinker]

Ah, before anyone jumps on me about the "resolution issue" --- that the "fair use" might be limited to X seconds at a lower resolution --- my impression is that fair use can also cover the case where only a small part of a visual work (e.g., 1/25 of the full frame of a movie) is used at the original resolution. I.e., my original comment is valid, just that the piecing together might have to be both in the time and the space domain.

Re:Including _fair use_!

[jd]

If there is a variable encryption key which cannot trivially be deduced from a "fair use" segment, then all the labels have to do is require that reviewers request a set of pre-generated keys for the specific segment they want to quote.

I'm not saying this would be sane or rational, merely that it would meet the objectives of fair use without eliminating DRM. There is no serious fear of a "secure" DRM ever existing - the companies aren't skilled enough to fix trivial flaws, so there's not the slightest possibility of them even reaching the point of making things difficult. In fact, the methodology seems to be one of relying on the law for security with DRM providing a rationale. On that basis, I'd say that the loss of any level of legal protection in any country in the Americas will prove troublesome.

Re:Including _fair use_!

[Kitsune Inari]

makes it impossible to implement any kind of reasonable DRM

any kind of reasonable DRM

reasonable DRM

Oxymoron detected.

Re:Including _fair use_!

[FrangoAssado]

I think you're confusing the technical ability to break encryption with its legality. It seems that the new proposed legislation would allow you to legally break the DRM encryption to use something under fair use. It doesn't say that whoever put DRM must tell you how to break it or give you keys.

Besides, I don't see the point of your scheme. According to Article 46, paragraph II of the proposed law, fair use allows you to make a whole copy of a protected work to "ensure its portability or interoperability", so you wouldn't even need a lot of people, you could do the whole thing yourself (say, to encode in a different format).

Re:Including _fair use_!

[Mathinker]

Your reply seems to misunderstand the thrust of my post(s): the reasonableness of "fair use" in a particular case is independent of what other parts of the work have been used for "fair use" in other cases. The content owners would have to justify to the court why they don't have to release every single segment --- to different individuals (i.e., they'd have to prove to the court that this was a conspiracy to copy the whole work).

There is no serious fear of a "secure" DRM ever existing - the companies aren't skilled enough to fix trivial flaws, so there's not the slightest possibility of them even reaching the point of making things difficult.

The DRM for the Playstation 3 proves you wrong. DRM can never be made absolutely secure, however, it certainly can be made secure against opponents with limited enough resources. I do agree, however, that the vast majority of "companies aren't skilled enough", and therefore, my observation is most likely academic rather than practical.

Re:Including _fair use_!

[Mathinker]

I think you're confusing the technical ability to break encryption with its legality. It seems that the new proposed legislation would allow you to legally break the DRM encryption to use something under fair use. It doesn't say that whoever put DRM must tell you how to break it or give you keys.

Besides, I don't see the point of your scheme. According to Article 46, paragraph II of the proposed law, fair use allows you to make a whole copy of a protected work to "ensure its portability or interoperability", so you wouldn't even need a lot of people, you could do the whole thing yourself (say, to encode in a different format).

I based my post on the following from Doctorow's post:

And what's more, any rightsholder who adds a DRM that restricts things that are allowed by Brazilian copyright laws ("fair dealing" or "fair use") faces a fine.

This probably makes things clearer to you --- although you might have a much better understanding of the proposed law than Doctorow, himself, if you understand the original language.

Re:Including _fair use_!

[Mathinker]

> reasonable (in the eyes of the likes of **AAs) DRM

>> Oxymoron detected

But we all knew already that the **AAs are morons!

Re:Including _fair use_!

[bzipitidoo]

There is no serious fear of a "secure" DRM ever existing

True.

the companies aren't skilled enough to fix trivial flaws

But not for this reason. DRM that works is a logical impossibility, and no amount of skill can change that. DRM will always have the flaw that it only takes one successful effort to break it, and once broken it is broken for everyone, always. And that in order to be "consumed", content must be unlocked, and then it can be copied in any number of trivially easy ways. The media companies' real difficulty seems to be an unwillingness to acknowledge this.

Re:Including _fair use_!

[silentcoder]

>I think you're confusing the technical ability to break encryption with its legality. It seems that the new proposed legislation would allow you to legally break the DRM encryption to use something under fair use. It doesn't say that whoever put DRM must tell you how to break it or give you keys.

Actually, it DOES. It states that the DRM MUST allow you to exercise (any and all off) your fair-use rights. It makes it a criminal offense punishable with a fine to prevent them. This means that if a user demands the keys in order to make a backup copy of a piece of media, they would be committing a crime if they refused to provide them, unless of course, the DRM in question is built in such a way that it makes these fair use rights actively doable already (like e.g. steam's allowed-backup system).

Re:Including _fair use_!

[spazdor]

Simple. Release images to every single person who requests one, with "fair use" degraded quality, with a "degradation signature" based deterministically on the identity of the requesting party.

Viola: the resulting video is, from one frame to the next, a list of the "guilty". Maybe subsequent video compression will bury the telltale artifacts. Maybe not.

Re:Including _fair use_!

[camperdave]

Fair use, though, implies that the user can copy/paste from whatever source the user has. It does not force the user to go to the issuer of the work for a "fair use degraded quality" sample.

Re:Including _fair use_!

[Diantre]

The companies could hire the world's best hackers and come up with a file that is absolutely uncrackable.... I'd still be able to run an analog line out of an Apogee audio interface and back in with basically no loss in quality.

Re:Including _fair use_!

[Mathinker]

> with "fair use" degraded quality

Ah, but there are some fair uses which require the original quality --- for example, if you wanted to comment on how much better the HD experience was compared to lower resolutions. In this case, it would be possible to use a small portion of the whole frame of the movie for fair use ("See how much better that sword looks?"). See my previous post.

> with a "degradation signature" ... a list of the "guilty".

Watermarking schemes have an even worse record of success than DRM schemes. I don't buy it, sorry. And it wouldn't even be a list of the guilty, because every one would have been legally authorized (by "fair use") to distribute his little part of the work. The guilty party is the person who strings the parts together, not the people who used them for "fair use" (I am assuming a scenario where every person actually bothers to do the work to make a real fair use of his small part of the work).

And anyway, as was said above, this is all more or less an academic exercise.

Re:Including _fair use_!

[Anonymous Coward]

reasonable DRM

Oxymoron detected.

DRM is "reasonable" as long as 99% of consumers don't notice it. The DRM on a DVD or the DRM on an iTunes song (as long as you use iTunes and an iPod / iPhone) are reasonable to most consumers because they don't even notice it.

WMA players lost out in a big way because not only was the DRM a pain to deal with, but they changed DRM formats and old songs (in the ironically titled "Plays for Sure" format) purchased to WMA players don't even work with new Zune WMA players.

But DRM isn't necessary for a profit if media is reasonably priced and readily available as well. The iTunes store still continues to make a ton of sales on music even with the new DRM-free formats supported.

Re:Including _fair use_!

[Anonymous Coward]

Not really. I think use of DRM is reasonable and useful in enabling digital rentals (i.e. where you download something to watch for a limited time period). Although, IMO this is the only reasonable use for DRM.

Re:Including _fair use_!

[FrangoAssado]

You're right, I had missed that. The whole article 107 (the one Doctorow quoted) says, among other things:

1. you can't "change, suppress, modify or disable" any technical device meant to restrict copy
2. you can't hinder or prevent the uses allowed by the articles that rule fair use (46, 47 and 48) -- this is what Doctorow is pointing at, I think.
3. item 1 doesn't apply if you're trying to use something in accord to the articles that rule fair use

It's interesting that a lot of the proposed article 46 is already crossed out (but not the part I mentioned earlier about "ensuring its portability or interoperability"). Still, it's unlikely that article 107 will be approved as it stands. If it was, it would render DRM useless, as you say: you can encrypt, but anyone must be able to decrypt the whole thing (to allow fair use). This clearly will not happen, because it would make it illegal to import all sorts of things (DVDs, for example).

Re:Including _fair use_!

[jd]

So long as your system could duplicate the analogue waves perfectly (no messy variations in response, which is what tape-to-tape copy prevention relied on), you'd be absolutely correct. The problem is that most analogue electronics will have variable response, which means that the vendor need merely find things that alias to the "correct" sound in the human ear but which do NOT alias to the "correct" sound after being passed through a typical analogue coping device.

However, fundamentally you are correct. So long as the decoded data is duplicated exactly, then there is no way to distinguish the copy from the original.

Re:Including _fair use_!

[orkysoft]

And that copy would be in contravention of copyright laws. Just because fair use allows you to quote a small portion of a copyrighted work, does not mean you can legally reconstitute the entire work by piecing together those quotes.

Re:Including _fair use_!

[Diantre]

First of all I doubt there exists such things as "sounds that alias to the "correct" sound in the human ear but which do NOT alias to the "correct" sound after being passed through a typical analogue coping device." Even if it existed, that would mean that as soon as the song enters a Analog-to-Digital conversion, it is distorted, which bars, amongst other things, most modern HI-FI and car sound systems, some DJ mixers, club venues, bref, anywhere where Digital Signal Processing is used, which mean pretty much everywhere in 2010. Also, I'm really not sure what you mean by "variable response"

Re:Including _fair use_!

[Kitsune Inari]

You have a point, DRM might have ONE reasonable use. That is, if it's possible to make it work at all without Treacherous Computing.

That is nice to hear

[RandomAdam]

Nice to hear that at least some places in the world wont criminalise people so x-megacorp can "protect" their investment even after it should have passed into public domain

Re:That is nice to hear

[Anonymous Coward]

Color me pessimist, but wait a while longer to see what happens when the megacorps get the message and start buying off Brazil's politicians...

Fascinating

[mysidia]

<p>
How long will it be before US sanctions and pressure from other governments still controlled by the **AA pirates  forces them to fall in line and adopt more conventional DMCA rules?
</p>

Re:Fascinating

[morcego]

That would be a bit hard to do without changing the constitution. Not impossible, but definitively not simple or easy.

The Brazilian constitution is some a short document, like the USA's. Think of how hard it would be for a corporation to actually change the constitution, and you get the picture.

Re:Fascinating

[linhares]

what? the constitution here is pretty huuuge dude, a real labyrinth: http://www.senado.gov.br/legislacao/const/con1988/CON1988_05.10.1988/index.shtm

Re:Fascinating

[GigaplexNZ]

The Brazilian constitution is some a short document

I think it was a typo, meant to read something like:

The Brazilian constitution is not a short document

Re:Fascinating

[keeboo]

Indeed. The brazilian constitution is so long, it's almost like they wanted to cram all possible laws in the same text.

Re:Fascinating

[cyclomedia]

Actually, Brazil has been plenty socking it to the (Gov't of the) USA lately, as part of one of the BRIC bloc (Brazil, Russia, India, China) of large economy's that don't give a crap what the USA has to say about a lot of issues. Take for example Brazil hosting negotiations and setting up a deal between Turkey and Iran regarding uranium enrichment. USA was not pleased and made a lot of waa waa noises at the UN but as far as those three are concerned the USA can stuff off and get off their lawn, thank you.

The USA is still the most powerful nation on earth, but they're at a tipping point and it's not just the BRIC countries that are coming to realize that they can do whatever the hell they like and the USA can just shut up

Re:Fascinating

[Kreigaffe]

Next time you're trying to talk up Brazil, maybe avoid the part where they help facilitate Iran getting its hands on enriched uranium

Re:Fascinating

[jbssm]

Well, not all the world ... not even all the western world sees that as a bad thing. Many countries actually see it as a way to bring some stability to a zone that is completely unstable due to the presence of a militar super-power (for the region), Israel, and that by giving nuclear capability to other country in the region that would level out the status quo in the zone and prevent most of the violence that we have seen committed by Israel against their neighbours in the last decades.

Re:Fascinating

[Attila Dimedici]

Well, not all the world ... not even all the western world sees that as a bad thing. Many countries actually see it as a way to bring some stability to a zone that is completely unstable due to the presence of a militar super-power (for the region), Israel, and that by giving nuclear capability to other country in the region that would level out the status quo in the zone and prevent most of the violence that we have seen committed by Israel against their neighbours in the last decades.

You phrased that incorrectly. It would bring stability to the region because anybody in the region who does not bow to Iranian demands on following their version of Islam risks getting nuked. Since the Iranian leaders have also expressed a desire to witness the muslim version of Armegeddon it means there are significant chances that when they get nuclear weapons they will launch a nuclear strike against Israel, that should do wonders for the stability of the Middle East.

Re:Fascinating

[morcego]

Yup, it was a typo. You've got it right.

Sorry about that.

Re:Fascinating

[mcgrew]

I assume English is not your native language and will appreciate the following: It isn't "company's"; that would be a possessive, as in "the company's stock cost $1 per share." You don't use an apostrophe for a plural unless it's a plural possessive, in which case the apostrophe will come after the S (the one dog's bone is over there, the two dogs' bones are over here). Many words, like company, change spelling slightly when using a plural, and company is one of them. It should read "companies". If it belongs to the company, it's "company's." If it belongs to two companies, it's companies'.

Hope I was a help, and BTW you're doing better at your second language than I ever did with either of the two besides English I speak. If I'm mistaken and English is your native language, for God's sake get off the internet and read a few books.

Re:Fascinating

[cyclomedia]

Well, English is _technically_ my second language after Yorkshireman. Happy to be pulled up on it though, keep up the good work!

With Liberty and Justice for all

[Anonymous Coward]

Take that, USA.

not unusual

[Tom]

Really not surprising. When the US was a small, backwater english colony, it was also famous for its piracy (of books, in that time).

It is the countries with the massive content industries that have the strict copyright regimes. Brasil isn't home to Hollywood or very many international music superstars.

Re:not unusual

[Anonymous Coward]

It isn't a piracy issue, it's a public domain issue. More specifically, they want to HAVE a public domain rather than having every byte of information to be owned and exploited by someone, then thrown away once it is no longer a source of revenue.

Re:not unusual

[morcego]

If you mean that Brazil don't have Hollywood paying off politicians, you are right on spot there.

Music labels, on the other hand, are pretty strong (ie: giving politicians money) here, tho.

Re:not unusual

[NoMaster]

And when it was a slightly larger, less backwater independent nation, it was famous for its piracy of other art forms...

Re:not unusual

[Anonymous Coward]

Brasil isn't home to Hollywood or very many international music superstars.

Ah yes, that explains everything. Obviously Brazil has no talent to worry about, being a back-water berg with no culture to speak of.. /facepalm

Re:not unusual

[Tom]

Well, apparently these days one has to spell out everything on /. instead of being able to rely on basic intelligence in the reader.

I'm sure Brasil has a comparative pool of creativity to the US, Europe, Burma, Greenland or any other place on earth. There are some local differences depending on whether or not creativity is valued in a culture or not so much, but as it's a basic human trait, they are pretty small.

However, Brasil does not have a massive industry based on copyright. And copyright is, first and foremost and no matter what they try to tell you, an economic law. It gives you you a monopoly on commercial use of your works.

So, without an industry that is strong in copyright, the country has no major incentives to be a strong proponent of copyright. On the contrary, turning a blind eye to the use of foreign copyrights is a reasonable thing to do (less money flowing out of the country for goods with no tangible value).

Re:not unusual

[Anonymous Coward]

Really not surprising. When the US was a small, backwater english colony, it was also famous for its piracy (of books, in that time).

It is the countries with the massive content industries that have the strict copyright regimes. Brasil isn't home to Hollywood or very many international music superstars.

Actually, it was infamous for its piracy into the 1940's for music and well into the 1980's for technology. It is still infamous for pirating/"adapting" movie plots (this is possible to do in large scale since Americans never look at forreign movies and never read forreign books). E.g. during the Korean and Vietnam war, US companies pirated many Swedish weapon, positioning and communication systems (according to Swedish law at the time, it was illegal to export those systems to US as it was an aggressor in a war on forreign ground and those action was not sanctioned by the right international authorities). Some of these weapons (and two types of compasses) is still manufactured within USA, still without paying any license fees. Another more recent exemple is US patent 4303986 from 1978.

US companies is also notorious for stealing brand names. At the moment I can only recall Cohiba and Silva, but that's because, as an European, I don't use products made for Asian markets, which is the majority of brand names stolen by US companies and used to sell products to asians living in USA.

Re:not unusual

[ignavus]

Really not surprising. When the US was a small, backwater english colony, it was also famous for its piracy (of books, in that time).

It is the countries with the massive content industries that have the strict copyright regimes. Brasil isn't home to Hollywood or very many international music superstars.

Yep. Copyright (and patents) is imperialism carried out by means other than tanks. The tanks are just there in case some punk country STILL doesn't pay its tribute (aka copyright and patent licence fees).

Every little country realises that "intellectual property" is intellectual imperialism (a.k.a "we thought of it first!"). Every big country has forgotten that lesson from its past, and just goes around trying to figure out new ways to make the rest of the world pay it more tribute.

Re:not unusual

[delinear]

Of course, the fact that new works likely won't enter public domain until at least a century after they're created, and conceivably up to a century and a half, it's still not a great win for the public. If they combined this with, for instance, a fixed 10 year copyright period it would be a triumph (and an interesting experiment in whether this would stimulate creativity or stifle it).

Re:not unusual

[Anonymous Coward]

Stop spelling Brazil "Brasil". I don't care that it's called "Brasil" in Portuguese, it's called BraZil in English. Z Z Z Z Z.

Do you also go round referring to Germany as "Deutschland" when writing in English?

Re:not unusual

[Anonymous Coward]

Yo, Fascist Wacko from Iowa, the world is not the Appalachians.
ALL, I say ALL, important US artists, musicians, directors and else are going to Brazil to try to get some money. Beyonce, 50 Cent, Cameron, Spielberg, and all the other American industry icons are there in Brazil begging fro a chance to work and make some money, because that country got only 5% unemployment and its economy had grown 17% last quarter, while in the US we still have 35% of the population unemployed, our military is falling down to pieces, and our unemployed people just spend their time at Tea party rallies because they serve food at the end.
So, WAKE UP CRAPHEAD, our US is fucked up and the only right that our American passport gives to us is the right to get spit on the face and get laughed, because our USA is the BIGGEST HISTORIC FAILURE in the history of the universe.
So, read the news and see that the BRIC countries will surpass and destroy the US in our pathetic lifetime. We are the last generation of Americans, our country is a failure, and we will end up like the Irish, migrating all around the world.

Re:not unusual

[ammorais]

So, without an industry that is strong in copyright, the country has no major incentives to be a strong proponent of copyright.

So, without an industry to fill the pockets of politicians, the country has no major incentives to uphold totally insane laws.

Re:not unusual

[Tom]

Yeah, I'm not a native english speaker and sometimes I make spelling mistakes in names. Sue me. Glad to know your life is so great that you have no better things to do with your it then complaining about spelling errors on /.

Re:not unusual

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you also go round referring to Germany as "Deutschland" when writing in English?

Not GP, but.. actually, yes.

At odds with hardware?

[kanweg]

l love this, but isn't it at odds with modern hardware? I believe one can run across the problem that the hardware refuses to play a movie at (very) high resolution because it lacks DRM. That movie could be your own or in the public domain.

Bert

Re:At odds with hardware?

[Mathinker]

> but isn't it at odds with modern hardware?

It's "at odds" with the concept of DRM, itself, actually, because the DRM system has to enable limited copying (for fair use --- see my comment above).

This is just a proposal for the law, because of its incompatibility with the status quo of global commerce (as you point out one of many problems) I think it has very, very little possibility of actually becoming law in its proposed form. Unfortunately....

Re:At odds with hardware?

[Sir_Lewk]

It's not at odds with modern hardware, it is at odds with DRM schemes that may be present in modern hardware. Nothing about playing high resolution videos intristically requires DRM.

"What a funny turned upside down world."

[circletimessquare]

yes, brazil is in the southern hemisphere (mostly)

this is their map they share with the other antipodeans:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6f/Blank-map-world-south-up.png

Re:"What a funny turned upside down world."

[EdIII]

this is their map they share with the other antipodeans:

What does the Men in Black movies have to do with this?

Re:"What a funny turned upside down world."

[icannotthinkofaname]

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6f/Blank-map-world-south-up.png

Wow! You found a map of Mondas!

Re:"What a funny turned upside down world."

[c0mpliant]

Are you from The Organisation of Cartographers for Social Equality?

Re:"What a funny turned upside down world."

[icannotthinkofaname]

Um...no, unless you're looking for social equality between the humans and the Cybermen.

Re:"What a funny turned upside down world."

[c0mpliant]

To understand my (bad) joke, watch this

Re:"What a funny turned upside down world."

[icannotthinkofaname]

I see. Sorry about my ignorance; I'm a massive Doctor Who fanboy.

Re:"What a funny turned upside down world."

[c0mpliant]

Ha ha, no worries, I'm a massive west wing fanboy!

Re:"What a funny turned upside down world."

[digitalunity]

They could have made more fanboys if they just started off with Donna getting half naked from the start instead of waiting until the last season.

Good show though. I hope in my heart that horse-trading politics aren't really like the show, but in my brain I know they really are and that's where we get all our shitty laws from. For every shitty law, 10 senators walked away happy that they got something out of the deal and everyone else toes the line.

So

[Anonymous Coward]

Is my-drm.public ok?

Logic fail

[Anonymous Coward]

"you can break DRM without breaking the law" doesn't mean "it is illegal to break the public domain". Those are two separate parts of the legislation.

Re:Logic fail

[Anonymous Coward]

However, companies getting fined when they put DRM on public domain stuff, could be interpreted as it being illegal to break the public domain.

Seems like it breaks the public domain to me.

[hellop2]

What if you want to make open source software that uses DRM as an integral part of its function? Like maybe, personal encryption?

Re:Seems like it breaks the public domain to me.

[Lord Kano]

What if you want to make open source software that uses DRM as an integral part of its function? Like maybe, personal encryption?

You, sir, clearly do not understand what DRM is.

Re:Seems like it breaks the public domain to me.

[kvezach]

Like maybe, personal encryption?

Then it's no longer DRM, which is basically a program that has both lock and key yet tries to hide the key from the user except in "allowed" circumstances. Personal encryption doesn't include both the lock and the key; instead, you have the key and you use it to prove to the lock program that you have (unlimited) access to the encrypted volume/whatever.

Besides, it stands to reason that what you're encrypting is meant to be private, thus, since it's not released, it doesn't fall within the domain of copyright. You're not distributing anything, so limits to distribution don't apply.

Re:Seems like it breaks the public domain to me.

[hellop2]

My point is a question of whether or not blocking DRM on all public domain works is in everyone's best interest.

I know what DRM is. Now if you want to talk semantics, imagine you own a work that you want to put on your website, so you encrypt it so that only your friends and family can view it, with your special viewer. This is personal encryption, and it is DRM. Now, my niece goes to jail for uploaded Shakespeare.

Not distributed enough for you? Imagine a Linux based computer like OLPC targeted for kids. Your company distributes Open Source/Public Domain works under DRM to ensure that your users only run software that's up-to-date, reviewed, and covered under your support contract. Now this company can't do business in Brazil.

Why not stick to my post topic, or at least the first/main sentence instead of trying to compare nerd badges.(not directed at you kvezach, but possibly Lord Kano) Can you think of a scenario where blocking DRM legislatively might not be desirable?

Re:Seems like it breaks the public domain to me.

[Anonymous Coward]

Encryption = you own the lock on your front door, you own the key to your house

DRM = you own the lock on your front door, I own the key to your house

The technology may be the same; it's not a technological distinction.

Re:Seems like it breaks the public domain to me.

[elvesrus]

Or he could just be trying to come up with one hell of a chastity belt.

Re:Seems like it breaks the public domain to me.

[tepples]

Not distributed enough for you? Imagine a Linux based computer like OLPC targeted for kids. Your company distributes Open Source/Public Domain works under DRM to ensure that your users only run software that's up-to-date, reviewed, and covered under your support contract.

Under OLPC Bitfrost, the user can assign privileges to an app, either through the installer package or later. Some privileges may only be assigned later; for example, an installer cannot simultaneously request network access and the ability to scan the user's home directory. But the user always has the ability to assign these privileges, apart from a couple privileges related to the recovery image that require a developer key. These keys appear to be available upon the child's request with a two-week turnaround to make sure the computer hasn't been reported stolen.

Re:Seems like it breaks the public domain to me.

[Pentium100]

I know what DRM is. Now if you want to talk semantics, imagine you own a work that you want to put on your website, so you encrypt it so that only your friends and family can view it, with your special viewer.

This is not DRM. If you want to make the information accessible to selected group of people, you can just share the encryption key with them. DRM starts when you want to simultaneously allow your friends to access the content, but also not allow them to copy it and upload to some other site. And this cannot be done. The friend in question can always point a camera at the screen and then upload the recorded video. Hollywood tries to come up with an unbreakable DRM, see how successful they are...

Also, if this was before high speed internet, and you shared the content on film, audio and VHS tapes, floppy disks (for text) or paper? Your friends could still make copies, broadcast the media on radio or TV (if they had access) or just show it to everyone whether you like it or not.

Not distributed enough for you? Imagine a Linux based computer like OLPC targeted for kids. Your company distributes Open Source/Public Domain works under DRM to ensure that your users only run software that's up-to-date, reviewed, and covered under your support contract. Now this company can't do business in Brazil.

Open source software cannot have DRM. Why? Simple, if I have the source code, I can just remove the DRM.
You can use hardcoded checks for updates if you want to, but that can also be patched, especially with access to source code.

Also, you can refuse support if the software is not up to date or not covered under the contract.

Re:Seems like it breaks the public domain to me.

[starfishsystems]

To expand on the parent comments, none of the scenarios you're describing are DRM. Your first example is patently not. There DRM is neither necessary nor sufficient. You want to provide access to works on your website? Give people accounts and a password. It's done all the time.

DRM is a techology proposed for revoking access to works already in posession of other parties, and as many people have commented, it's prima facie impossible. The problem in crypographic terms is that you're trying to secure a communication between Alice and Bob while preventing eavesdropping by Eve, under the additional constraint that Bob and Eve are the same party at different points in time.

So your first example is not DRM, and your second is nonsensical. What useful purpose is served by trying to impose DRM on works which are in the public domain? You want to "protect" users from accessing the wrong version of these works? Excuse me, that's none of your business!

Now, if you want to ensure that your software will only run against certain versions of data, you can do that. Just sign the data and have the software verify the signature. But that's not DRM.

Re:Seems like it breaks the public domain to me.

[Anonymous Coward]

Your company distributes Open Source/Public Domain works under DRM to ensure that your users only run software that's up-to-date, reviewed, and covered under your support contract. Now this company can't do business in Brazil.

Isn't that desirable? If I take other people's labor and then tried to use it to create a monopoly on software maintenance, then I'm subverting the premise of Free Software. And Public Domain too, now that I think about it.

imagine you own a work that you want to put on your website, so you encrypt it so that only your friends and family can view it, with your special viewer.

If I try to manipulate people into using specific software, it's not appropriate to refer to those people as "friends." Friends don't try to be each other's overlords, dictate the terms under which they see a video, etc. If the video is that sensitive, then you can show it to them on a screen rather than using the internet (after searching your "friends" for cameras).

If you want to come up with a case where prohibiting DRM isn't in the public interest, you're going to have try a lot harder than those lame examples.

Re:Seems like it breaks the public domain to me.

[Anonymous Coward]

There's an idea...

iChastityBelt - encrypts your own pr0n for a limited period of time! No more succumbing to temptation with iCB! Deluxe version includes web filter.

Hey, that would even be proper DRM.

Re:Seems like it breaks the public domain to me.

[kvezach]

Can you think of a scenario where blocking DRM legislatively might not be desirable?

Not really. If you want only a select other party to access your data, then you can use ordinary crypto. You're not trying to hide the key from Bob while letting Bob decrypt, you're trying to hide the key from Eve while letting Bob decrypt, something which is much easier to do. (Trusted computing basically boils down to making the computer Bob and the user Eve - the user no longer has root on his own computer)

But let's consider public domain in particular. A work that is in the public domain can be shared freely - or in other words, part of the commons of ideas. There are no laws that act as perimeter fences in idea space around this work (unlike, say, copyrighted works), and so the sharing of that data can only enrich others. "He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me", and all that.

If you're dealing with an OLPC situation, then there are two solutions, in my opinion. Either the computer is fully owned by the child in question, in which case the only thing you can do is tell him not to run odd binaries as root (and have a fine-grained security mechanism that limits privilege escalation); or the computer is not, and then the one who really owns it can set a policy that limits the computer to running digitally signed software or what have you. The latter is no more DRM than your average internet kiosk is.

Thus, to sum up, the public domain is already public; artificially limiting works in the public domain is a bad thing as it only constrains sharing without providing any benefits. Restriction policies, on the other hand, can be enforced by the owner but should not be enforced against him.

Re:Seems like it breaks the public domain to me.

[hellop2]

kvezach, thanks for discussing this hypothetical situation and allowing me to play Devil's advocate.

In the OLPC-like scenario I describe, DRM is a useful and desired feature for the user. Trusted computing, where only software digitally signed by the company can by run. For example, if you wanted to ensure that students' computers could not get a virus, bug, or if they need a trusted computing environment for the purposes of taking tests and to thwart cheating... or to ensure that your net-nanny software could not be circumvented.

This is a product that could be desirable to some parents. Now it appears that you don't call this DRM.

from wikipedia:
"The term is used to describe any technology that inhibits uses of digital content not desired or intended by the content provider.[1] The term does not generally refer to other forms of copy protection which can be circumvented without modifying the file or device, such as serial numbers or keyfiles.[2]"

My scenario appears to fit 1. And lets just say for the sake of argument that it fits 2.

Now, I suppose it doesn't matter if you or I think this scenario is DRM, but rather it matters if the legislature calls this DRM. FTA, my company would face a fine if it "b) hinders or prevents the free use of works, broadcast transmissions and phonograms which have fallen into the public domain."

Personally, I think that in a free country, if I create a work and release it to the public domain, and then also sell a DRMed version, I should have the right to do that without facing a fine. The consumer is not forced to buy my product. And I should be able to encode a public domain work in any way I wish, seeing how my doing so does not prevent you from viewing the work in some other non-DRM way and since you willingly purchased my DRM product.

From what I gather, using my limited intelligence, you're saying that OLPC-like encrypted, restricted computing platform, could be achieved without the use of DRM?

I'm a little tired and may not be able to think up the perfect example. But I think that this law takes away more freedom than it gives. It does nothing to increase fair use, since you could always your fair use of a public domain work on some other platform. But now, manipulating the bits of a public domain work in a certain way is a crime.

Re:Seems like it breaks the public domain to me.

[hellop2]

"DRM starts when you want to simultaneously allow your friends to access the content, but also not allow them to copy it and upload to some other site. And this cannot be done."

I just giggled at this. Then since DRM is impossible, this law is moot.

Re:Seems like it breaks the public domain to me.

[Pentium100]

Uncrackable DRM is not possible for non-interactive media. That's why there are laws such as the DMCA to (hopefully) prevent people from cracking the DRM.

Re:Seems like it breaks the public domain to me.

[kvezach]

From what I gather, using my limited intelligence, you're saying that OLPC-like encrypted, restricted computing platform, could be achieved without the use of DRM?

Yes. Consider again a typical work computer running Windows. On it, the worker usually doesn't have admin rights, and group policy limits what he can do. If this computer had a policy setting saying "only permit the execution of digitally signed files from these companies" (I don't know if Windows actually has that, but bear with me), then the computer will enforce that policy on the user. DRM is not involved because it is possible for the owner of the computer (in this case, the administrator) to override the policy at will; it is not cryptographic magic that keeps non-signed files from being executed, but rather simple explicit privilege limitations.

Maybe this is not really an OLPC-like encrypted restricted computing platform, as the data is not sealed in some vault away from all the users (unlike what is the case for Trusted Computing; I don't know much about the OLPC model itself), but for all intents and purposes, such explicit privilege limitation (policy enforcement) will suffice, except in the case that the owner is the one "you" (whoever you are, then) are trying to limit.

What makes DRM into DRM, as by the Wikipedia definition, is that the "content provider" tries to enforce policy on computers he doesn't own. Remote attestation is just a clever way of getting around this: the content provider only provides the content to computers that lets him enforce policy upon the owner. Now, if we imagined an authoritarian society where all computers are owned by the state and the copyright providers are also part of the state, then that policy enforcement could be done without DRM - simply have the state Admin account enforce the policy upon the "mere users" that lend the computers - but it wouldn't be a very good society.

There is a caveat to this, but one that I think works in the favor of sharing. For most computers, if you have physical access, then you can break the Admin level. But this makes sense, as it's usually the owners who have physical access to the computer, and so it provides a failsafe; if non-owners try to wrest rights from the owner, then the owner can always circumvent them by going up one level. If the OS tries to put the user in a matrix-like hypervisor environment, the user can circumvent the boot process to boot outside of the Matrix, and it can then be cracked at one's leisure.
The flipside of that is that if policies are limited by software, very ingenious children could defeat an OLPC-like lock. That is a social issue, and should be treated as such. Besides, I think that if you're clever enough to be able to do that, you've more or less earned the right anyway. Let the hackers hack; if they do something bad, then tell them. If you really don't want curious hackers, tell them that doing so will mean they'll lose their computers. You can do so because they're not the proper owners. The same goes for escalating privilege to admin on a work machine.

Thus, again to sum up: if you're trying to protect your own computer against others, limited privilege accounts will do nicely. If you're trying to "protect" your own program from being modified on another person's computer, then you can't, and shouldn't, do so.

But I think that this law takes away more freedom than it gives. It does nothing to increase fair use, since you could always your fair use of a public domain work on some other platform. But now, manipulating the bits of a public domain work in a certain way is a crime.

I see it more like the GPL. The public domain is the commons; if you want to publish data provided for common use, then you shouldn't lock it up. The public domain isn't actually GPLed, but the law in question doesn't require you to share your modifications, either; instead, it ensures the rights of distribution inherent in the public domain nature of what is being publis

All cracking legal?

[wvmarle]

If it is legal to crack/circumvent DRM when you are "not committing a copyright violation", it seems that it is also OK to crack DRM on other works, as long as you do not redistribute it. A few comments up someone posted the actual Brazilian fair use rules, and those seem pretty fair, and explicitly allow a.o. for creating a copy for personal use.

This would make it legal to say strip DRM from your legally bought iTunes songs, in order to make your personal copy.

It would be legal to rip BluRay discs and removing the DRM in the process, again to make your own personal copy.

Redistributing said material with or without DRM in place would be a copyright violation, and rightful so.

It would presumably be legal to create tools to do this - it seems reasonably to expect that to distribute such tools would even be legal.

Now the real fun can start: Brazilian programmer produces tool that removes DRM from material with US-owned copyrights. Fully legal in his native country. Would this person be liable to prosecution in the US? And indirectly by producing such a tool banning himself from visiting the US for the rest of his life?

Re:All cracking legal?

[shutdown -p now]

Now the real fun can start: Brazilian programmer produces tool that removes DRM from material with US-owned copyrights. Fully legal in his native country. Would this person be liable to prosecution in the US? And indirectly by producing such a tool banning himself from visiting the US for the rest of his life?

Ever heard of Dmitry Sklyarov?

Re:All cracking legal?

[wvmarle]

Yes I have (I recall the gist of it at least), and that was what I was thinking of indeed.

Most countries have the power of the courts strictly limited to crimes committed within their own country. Other countries limit their jurisdiction to crimes committed within their borders, and crimes committed outside those borders by their own citizens.

It seems though that the US has no such limitations: certain acts committed by foreigners in a foreign country where such act is fully legal, but which is illegal in the US, may be prosecuted under US law when that foreigner is in the US. And I recall even reports of US agents abducting foreign citizens in a foreign country, taking them to the US, and prosecuting them there.

Scary.

Re:All cracking legal?

[Anonymous Coward]

But who in the world would like to visit the US these days?

Re:All cracking legal?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hopefully not you. In fact, I'd love if you just kept your funky ass in your mom's basement for the rest of your life.

Re:All cracking legal?

[Anonymous Coward]

The guy who worked for the company that was found not to have willfully violated US law?

Re:All cracking legal?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd not heard of such abductions, but if there is any truth in this, it is indeed scary.

One has to wonder then, what is it about the U.S. that the feel they have the right to effectively violate the sovereignty of another nation to protect their own interests?

How would they react if such a crime, (I would consider this a crime), were perpetrated against one of their own citizens?

The arrogance of the U.S. (the self appointed 'world police').

Could this also be why they consider it their "god given right" to have military bases in countries other than their own?

Little wonder there is so much resentment towards them.

Don't suppose they have considered becoming genuine members of the global population, or offering due respect to other countries / cultures, that they seem to think only they deserve due their own self centred righteousness?

Re:All cracking legal?

[Tim C]

I suspect that in cases like this, the logic is that although the tool was produced overseas, it was made available in the US itself, and thus there may have been a case to answer.

I'm not saying I agree with it, but if you piss a nation off too much don't be surprised if they're not too welcoming should you ever try to enter the country. (Much like with people - piss me off, don't expect me to welcome you into my house)

Re:All cracking legal?

[tapanitarvainen]

I'd not heard of such abductions, but if there is any truth in this, it is indeed scary.

There is some truth in it, certainly. One glaring example is Manuel Noriega: he was not only foreign citizen but head of state, abducted by force by the US and flown to USA for trial. (Yeah, he was a thug and deserved what he got, but that's beside the point here.)

One has to wonder then, what is it about the U.S. that the feel they have the right to effectively violate the sovereignty of another nation to protect their own interests?

Because they're powerful enough to get away with it. I suspect everybody else would do it, too, if they could, and sometimes do. Israeli abduction of Eichmann is a good example: they got away with it not because of their military power but because those more powerful supported them, Eichmann being rather deserving of punishment, too. Most countries prefer to do such things less openly, resorting to assassination rather than claiming any legality to their actions - a bit further back in history, Trotsky is a prime example.

How would they react if such a crime, (I would consider this a crime), were perpetrated against one of their own citizens?

It would depend on how it'd suit the politics of the day. If the abductee was someone they wanted to get rid of, perhaps nothing but indignant speeches; if an American hero, anything up to full-scale war.

Re:All cracking legal?

[tapanitarvainen]

Most countries have the power of the courts strictly limited to crimes committed within their own country. Other countries limit their jurisdiction to crimes committed within their borders, and crimes committed outside those borders by their own citizens.

Actually quite a few, if not indeed most countries have provisions in their laws to prosecute for crimes committed outside their territory, in particular crimes committed not only by but also against their citizens (although typically with caveat that the it must be criminal also in the country where it occurred), some crimes are often prosecutable no matter what (genocide, airplane hijackings, child abuse being common). And often there's a proviso that prosecution is possible in any case if decided high enough (state attorney or similar).

I'm not aware of any comprehensive survey of this around the world, I know only of a rather random sample of countries - if anyone knows of such a study, I'd be very interested.

Re:All cracking legal?

[IamTheRealMike]

Well, the whole reason DRM exists is because the legal system doesn't scale to the number of law violators that exist. If copyright violation could be prosecuted quickly and efficiently enough to target everyone who did it, you wouldn't need DRM. You could just rely on the law as is. However there are too many violators and the law is too slow and heavy to do that, so you get DRM, and then it kind of makes sense to make breaking DRM illegal because not many people do that, so the law scales to it.

Of course, this does lead to contradictions with other parts of the law, eg fair use and expiration of copyrights. Some DRM schemes do attempt to address these. For example the design of BluRay DRM allows for copyright expiry as the title keys can be (are?) placed in eskrow to be released on the due date. Of course this doesn't actually have any impact because most keys leak long before that. AACS also has this concept of "managed copy" which attempts to address some parts of fair use, but fair use is deliberately vaguely defined so some people will never be happy with whatever compromise is worked out.

The real solution would be a lightweight and efficient legal process for punishing copyright violators. The various attempts to introduce 3-strikes laws are an example of that. Unfortunately these have been running around too, as lots of people are happy with the status quo where they can break the law daily without any real risk of punishment so there's no incentive to support such changes, although in the long run they could result in less or even no DRM being applied.

Re:All cracking legal?

[camperdave]

Well, the whole reason DRM exists is because the legal system doesn't scale to the number of law violators that exist. If copyright violation could be prosecuted quickly and efficiently enough to target everyone who did it, you wouldn't need DRM. You could just rely on the law as is. However there are too many violators and the law is too slow and heavy to do that, so you get DRM, and then it kind of makes sense to make breaking DRM illegal because not many people do that, so the law scales to it.

Interesting. So what happens when DRM breaking outstrips the law's capability to scale to it, say via a program similar to seti-at-home or folding-at home? What happens when botnets start installing this DRM breaker on thousands of computers?

Re:All cracking legal?

[wvmarle]

Yes I'd like to visit the USA. I have never been there and I think the country is pretty interesting and could make for a rather interesting experience.

No I don't like to get a thorough probe of my personal life and background before I even board the plane, being interrogated photographed and fingerprinted as part of my vacation, nor do I have interest in spending hours in "security" lines.

So I guess it will be a while before I visit that country.

And I should stop feeding trolls.

Re:All cracking legal?

[wolrahnaes]

Hell, ask Marc Emery. Sold pot seeds in Canada where it is legal to do so (even to the point that the Canadian government directed medical marijuana patients to him). Some went across the border, the DEA didn't like that, and they pressured the Canadians in to arresting and extraditing one of their own citizens for doing something that wasn't a crime there.

Really shows how fucked our "justice" system can be (and how weak-willed the Canadian authorities apparently are).

Re:All cracking legal?

[wolrahnaes]

although in the long run they could result in less or even no DRM being applied.

I think the problem with this line of reasoning is that historically people understand that once you've lost something it's hard to get it back, so unless these new stricter copyright laws come with a legal requirement that DRM be reduced at the same time most people would expect that the DRM really won't change at all and the laws will get stricter, making a worse situation overall.

Re:All cracking legal?

[shutdown -p now]

He was eventually found innocent, but he was still arrested while visiting US on the charge of circumventing DRM and forced to stand trial.

Nice trice - but who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

I might be missing the point (and this is more than likely since I did not read the article), but I don't think DRM on public domain works is really a big issues (has anyone encountered this?). The real issue is having some notion of fair-use. A user should be able to break DRM on a copyrighted work so that it can be utilized on a device of my choosing. If I buy a DVD, I should be able to rip it and use on a portable player, media server etc.

These type of laws are just a way for the media companies to try and resell the same works multiple times to the same people.

Re:Nice trice - but who cares?

[FlyingGuy]

Here I am with MP's yet I feel compelled to respond to you...

If you RTFA you would see that it explicitly sites making a personal copy for use on whatever player you desire. But if you give a copy to a friend with the DRM broken then you are still committing a crime and that is fair since it is NOT fair use.

Now having said that, I certainly expect a flood of torrents to start comming from Brazil if this gets enacted into law because people still think that if they buy a DVD and then rip it to make a copy to "should be able to rip it and use on a portable player, media server etc." they somehow have the right to give it away to their pals and put it on a web server for everyone to have a copy.

That is why this begins with, "I - reproduction by any means or process of any work legitimately acquired, if made in one copy and by the copyist, for his private use and not commercial;" [emphasis is mine] because in point of fact doing anything other then making a copy for personal, non commercial use is a copyright violation even under these terms and is in point of fact illegal and that is as it should be

Re:Nice trice - but who cares?

[Nerdfest]

People distributing copyrighted worked stripped of their DRM will happen regardless of whether or not it is legal to remove DRM for your own use.

Re:Nice trice - but who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

I certainly expect a flood of torrents to start comming from Brazil

Hardly, we Brazilians are leechers, not seeders.

(hey, that's what everyone says)

Re:Nice trice - but who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

party pooper

Re:Nice trice - but who cares?

[Ogive17]

You can already buy burned DVDs of anything that has been released for just a couple of US$ in Brazil from street vendors, I doubt this new law is going to have an affect on illegal distribution in any way.

Shareware?

[Lohrno]

Does this break shareware? IE: If you have a program that you have to pay money to unlock? It could be considered public if it's freely distributable I guess?

DRM useless except for a few

[Anonymous Coward]

3D movies exists since tenth of years, but now they implement it.. why ? in order to fight piracy and make harder to copy 3D movies on internet wires with the tons of billion bytes it require... DRM is definitly against people, against new world, against modernism.. what it is all about is fullfill the purse of a few.. but not only those whom created copyright material, but also their son and the son of their son.. doesn't it remind you something someway... turns out like a monarchy. no merit to be a king.. for the sole reason you are the son of the king.. like Bush 43 sole skill was to be the son of a president (Bush 41)..

Re:DRM useless except for a few

[Dr_Barnowl]

3D makes it harder to copy movies in the theatre with a camera. High def was their attempt to make things hard to copy by inflating the content size by an order of magnitude. 3D doesn't even double the data size required because you can get good compression from the commonality between left and right fields.

It does actually add value though. It had a shaky start but I've genuinely started enjoying certain movies in 3D more than I would have done in 2D.

On the other hand, all the recent stories about bullshit Hollywood accounting have counteracted that and put me off seeing movies at least as much as 3D is going to encourage it.

IP is the new imperialism though. People truly think that "owning" an idea gives them the right to the lions share of the profit from that idea, even if the bulk of the value is added by those working to implement it.

Re:DRM useless except for a few

[Firethorn]

It does actually add value though. It had a shaky start but I've genuinely started enjoying certain movies in 3D more than I would have done in 2D.

I've tried several 3D movies, unfortuantly the 3D aspect is outweighed by the headache. :(

I don't pay extra to see 3D movies anymore.

is a / has a test

[rainmouse]

public class MyGirlfriend extends Brazilian{

}

//hmm basic inheritance fail, let me try this one again.

private class MyGirlfriend{

Brazilian brazilian = new Brazilian();

}

Re:is a / has a test

[HungryHobo]

Just remember you have to call wait(568024668000) before doing anything with your new Brazilian.

Re:is a / has a test

[bsDaemon]

That's 18000 years... I don't think that's right

Re:is a / has a test

[cgpirre]

I assume wait() is in milliseconds, like most timers. So, 18 years.

Re:is a / has a test

[bsDaemon]

well, the Age of Consent in Brazil is apparently 14, anyway, so its still wrong, just differently so.

Re:is a / has a test

[cgpirre]

I was assuming he'd import her.

Re:is a / has a test

[alexborges]

It takes at least two Human to make a brazillian.

Re:is a / has a test

[NatasRevol]

I thought I had to call

8675 309

Re:is a / has a test

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmm. It certainly is easier with two humans, but one human and hot wax should be sufficient.

Re:is a / has a test

[SEWilco]

Brazilian brazilian = new Brazilian();

How many is that?

Brazil? Ain't that were they cut all the forests?

[Anonymous Coward]

Or is that a movie done by the Python guy? Either case, obscure shit.

T^HButtle

What about SSL?

[raju]

How will the ruling affect web sites that offer public domain content but use SSL?

Re:What about SSL?

[IBBoard]

It won't, since that's not DRM. DRM restricts what you can do with what you get access to. SSL restricts what other people can see of what you're doing but you can do whatever you want with what was encrypted after you decrypt it (which is part of the transfer process).

No it doesn't

[roguegramma]

Neither freeware nor shareware are in the public domain, the creator still has the copyright.

If the creator places it explicitely in the public domain on the other hand, he cannot expect any compensation, and it is true that the proposed brazilian law would make it illegal even for himself to try and remove it from the public domain by distributing it with DRM later on.

Not the first.

[krischik]

Switzerland explicitly allows DRM breaking since 2007.

Re:Not the first.

[Anonymous Coward]

Denmark allows DRM breaking for personal use too...
if a DRM solution prevents me from viewing a legal DVD I am allowed to break the DRM.

They Can Aprove Whatever They Want

[famazza]

There is something you all need to know about Brasil (do you prefer New York or Nova Iorque?), and I can tell, I'm not any proud of it.

The congress can aprove whatever law they want in Brasil, even DMCA-like, which I think it's very unlikely. Once aproved there are no grantees that the law will be respected.

Many laws in Brasil exists only on paper, and has't any kind of regulation nor enforcement. People simply ignore them, and even police, or official fiscalization, does nothing about it, the law is completely ignored by all sectors of society.

For example. Rip a CD or a DVD is not legal in Brasil. But everybody does it, and nothing is done about it. I have discovered about this a couple of month ago.

Another example. It's not legal to sell pirated CDs or DVDs. But in any city, even the smaller ones, it's possible to buy illegal copied CDs and DVDs for as much as US$ 2,50 each movie, US$ 1,50 each CD. It's very easy to buy a XBox 360 game for US$ 10. And as easy as find someone selling this CDs and DVDs on streets is to find a policeman buying from them.

This kind of attitude is not only found in copyrighted material. It's easy for a minor to buy alcoholic beverages or cigars.

So, the congress can even aprove a DRM-like legislation, but it will certainly not leave the paper. USA hungry for copyright protection will be pleased, but the society will ignore the law and thigs will remain the same as they are today.

Try to discuss something more practical about Brasil.

Re:They Can Aprove Whatever They Want

[delinear]

The key here is not that people routinely break laws, it's that here is a proposal that means in these very specific cases, and contrary to how other nations are interpreting it, you don't have to break the law. Imagine a country with sometimes ridiculously restrictive speed limits (I admit it, I'm from the UK) where the majority of drivers routinely break the speed limit. Now imagine one road is designated as being free of any limit (let's ignore the safety implications of this for the sake of simplicity). People could still enjoy the benefits of driving fast on that one road, safe in the knowledge that we weren't about to be prosecuted, even if it didn't change their habits of routinely driving too fast on other roads in breech of the law.

Re:They Can Aprove Whatever They Want

[KlausBreuer]

...and?

You're saying that the Brasilians are ignoring moronic laws set up by industry and reality-estranged politicians, and you consider this something not to be proud of?
I don't get it.

Re:They Can Aprove Whatever They Want

[Anonymous Coward]

This is not only a Brazilian problem. I've lived in countries like New Zealand and I've seen the same thing.

Re:They Can Aprove Whatever They Want

[mounthood]

Many laws in Brasil exists only on paper, and has't any kind of regulation nor enforcement. People simply ignore them, and even police, or official fiscalization, does nothing about it, the law is completely ignored by all sectors of society.

This is the reason the US should not be pushing ACTA. It'll only work with draconian international enforcement, constantly monitoring the actual practice of copyright, and arguing over sanctions and punishment for countries that don't meet the MAFIAA's standards. In the end the MAFIAA will keep some profits, and the US economy will suffer because the IP-based businesses didn't transition to new business models.

Re:They Can Aprove Whatever They Want

[Anonymous Coward]

For example. Rip a CD or a DVD is not legal in Brasil. But everybody does it,

It's not legal in the UK either, but lots of people still do it, at least for CDs to put music on their MP3 player*. It's not hard to find pirate DVDs here either.

Not sure how easy it is for a minor to buy alcohol and cigars (or cigarettes, I can't imagine a kid smoking cigars here). I purchased alcohol myself a number of times whilst under-age, but since I'm no longer under-age I can't really test it now.

*I'm sure this law is due to be changed, but the music industry has said they won't take legal action against anyone for this, and the last government had more important things to do like push through the Digital Economy Act to benefit the music and movie industry rather than doing something to benefit the people that actually voted for them.

Re:They Can Aprove Whatever They Want

[nitio]

Thank you for pointing out that you follow Mainardi's view of stupidity. Just so you know, when you say that to rip a CD/DVD in Brazil (like I care if they write with a Z or a S) is illegal you could not be more wrong. This has not been crime for about 7 years when the congress passed the bill to work on the 1940 copyright law. You can read here - for those not fluent in portuguese it pretty much states that it's not a copyright violation when done for personal use.

I'd also like to point out that Brazil is not an "Outlaws Paradise" as you seemed to imply through your text. All countries have their own level of problems - be it social or political. It'd be interesting if you actually took your time to understand what a "simple bill" might represent for the state in 50 years rather than in the usual 4-year-minded.

In the USA it is legal to break DRM...

[John Hasler]

,,,if doing so does not infringe copyright. From Title 17:

No person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title.

Thus the activity must be such that some other provision of Title 17 would be violated and the copyright owner must object. Material in the public domain is thus not covered. The DMCA "circumvention" provision is execrable, but Slashdot regularly grossly exaggerates its breadth.

Re:In the USA it is legal to break DRM...

[Anonymous Coward]

,,,if doing so does not infringe copyright. From Title 17:

No person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title.

Thus the activity must be such that some other provision of Title 17 would be violated and the copyright owner must object. Material in the public domain is thus not covered.

The DMCA "circumvention" provision is execrable, but Slashdot regularly grossly exaggerates its breadth.

It says "a work protected under this title", not "a use protected under this title". Big difference.

IANAL

Right, that's why Tommy Thompson threatened Bayer

[Kartu]

Right, US is so much more civilized than Brasil and that's why Tommy Thompson had threatened Bayer AG to ignore its rights on "Cipro" if it doesn't drop the price: "He might disregard the company's patent, he said, if the company didn't drop its price. "
http://www.cptech.org/ip/health/cl/cipro/americanlawyer012002.html

It's a proposal still

[Wooky_linuxer]

I just found the original project, as we call it. It is up for public scrutiny. It can still be changed when the voting happens. For brazilians, or people from abroad who'd like to take a look at it, here is the original address: http://www.cultura.gov.br/consultadireitoautoral/lei-961098-consolidada/ . The sad fact is that most people simply don't know or care about this proposed law here, and so it might be changed given enough pressure from media lobbyists. Hope it doesn't.

Important provisions for fair use

[Wooky_linuxer]

I'd like to draw attention to two provisions of the proposed law that are much more important, IMHO: Art. 46, I, explicity allows one copy by any means for private, non-commercial use. Art 46, II, explicity allows format-shifting for private and non-commercial use.

Re:Important provisions for fair use

[Shados]

Basically they're codifying fair use so its not up for debate anymore, as opposed to arguing that any copy isn't fair use, or that you can have 1743091749719417 copies and resell them as fair use, as some here like to argue (obviously im exaggerating).

Putting it on paper once and for all is a pretty good idea.

"It's not us, it's THEM"...

[sznupi]

That's mostly an excuse, shouting "it's their fault!" Two camps, battling.

I have a vivid local flavor of it, BTW (late EU member-state, was a place behind the Iron Curtain) - there's this myth that everything bad is the result of imposed reality, with "true %name_of_nationality" enduring due to unity, tradition and the Church; if they had their way, the place would be a shining beacon in almost every way.

Reality isn't / wasn't quite like that; apparently it's easy to ignore how basically whole regime was local, "collaborators" even among priests/etc., virtually every child of Party members baptized anyway, and reactionaries wanting to maintain status quo (when leadership preferred going towards a thaw) primarily at local level (hey, the place was one of the most feudal ones historically...) - the same level which now votes for "traditional" values... Oh, and if we are so great than why so many people after higher education end up washing dishes in the UK? And so on (those examples are just contradiction of the mentioned above myth, there's some more of course, for example on the economic basis - supposedly it's impossible here to be prosperous by hard work...; and why such distortions of perception would be unique?)

Societies end up where they want to take themselves (with solid changes for the better requiring timescales of a generation of course). From where do you think come people that form "them, corporations"? What happens with members of "us, the good people" when they have the opportunity to participate in such structures? (and ripe benefits for themselves) Could it be that...they suddenly become "them", that mostly the same old story happens again, that they do mostly the same? Well, that's (also) what given society actually values, promotes.

Re:"It's not us, it's THEM"...

[vegiVamp]

Oh, I mostly agree with what you're expressing, but it's quite important to realise that "the people" who form "the nation" are not quite uniform.

While you're of course correct that corporations are formed by members of "the people", the interests of those corporations are the interest of *only* the people who form them, and distinctly not of the rest of "the nation". It follows that any legislation that is passed, will not be tilted to the benefit of "the people" or "the nation", but towards the benefit of "the corporation", which is most smoothly accomplished by ensuring that there is also a benefit to "the politicians" - another one of those groups who come from the people but see themselves as quite distinct.

Thus, you get things from "gifts" to "campaign donations" (America) to corruption, the latter of which should be well-known to an eastern european, if the stories are even halfway true.

the strange world of the antipodeans:

[circletimessquare]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antipodes

Wrong about US' DMCA

[Sloppy]

Doctorow says

in the US, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act prohibits all circumvention of software locks, even when they don't protect copyright

but DMCA, in 1201(a)(1)(A), the part that prohibits playing DRMed works, says:

No person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title.

"This title" is Title 17; the title that creates copyright protection. If there's a public domain work that has DRM, you are allowed to defeat the DRM. You don't need to use any of the exemption clauses that come later, use any of the rules created by the librarian of congress, etc. DMCA never applies to you in the first case.

1201(b)(1), the part that prohibits creating and transacting in tools that play DRMed works, says:

(1) No person shall manufacture, import, offer to the public, provide, or otherwise traffic in any technology, product, service, device, component, or part thereof, that—

(A) is primarily designed or produced for the purpose of circumventing protection afforded by a technological measure that effectively protects a right of a copyright owner under this title in a work or a portion thereof;

(B) has only limited commercially significant purpose or use other than to circumvent protection afforded by a technological measure that effectively protects a right of a copyright owner under this title in a work or a portion thereof; or

(C) is marketed by that person or another acting in concert with that person with that person’s knowledge for use in circumventing protection afforded by a technological measure that effectively protects a right of a copyright owner under this title in a work or a portion thereof.

Same as above. If there are public domain DRMed works out there, you are allowed to create software that plays them and sell a billion copies of it openly. (There might be some fighting over (B) there, but .. well, we can talk about that in another thread.)

DMCA very explicitly only applies to copyrighted works and the rights of the holders of those works. And AFAIK there hasn't been any case law that contradicts the plain reading of these parts. If you know of any, give references.

Furthermore, Doctorow says

for example, it would be illegal to for me to break the DRM on a Kindle to access my own novels, were they sold with Kindle DRM

but DMCA 12(A)(3) says

As used in this subsection—
(A) to “circumvent a technological measure” means to descramble a scrambled work, to decrypt an encrypted work, or otherwise to avoid, bypass, remove, deactivate, or impair a technological measure, without the authority of the copyright owner

If you are the copyright holder, just grant authorization. You (not Amazon!!!!) are the authority that the law is speaking about. You can grant it to yourself, or anyone else and under any conditions. This part of the law is utterly critical to the industries that bought this law and they can never safely repeal it without screwing themselves. If copyright holders couldn't grant permission, then there would be zero legal DVD or Blu-Ray players. Every single unit, even ones licensed by DVDCCA or whatever the Blu-Ray equivalent is, would be violations. It's implicit and hidden, but there's some legal mechanism where the movie makers grant authorization to the public to use these devices, and grant authorization to the electronics manufacturers to make them.

RTFL, Doctorow. Oh, and if you want to fuck around with DMCA, then start thinking about what document(s) you may have signed which authorize Kindle users to read you

Re:Wrong about US' DMCA

[russotto]

I wish I had mod points, because you're right and it's a fact that has not been sufficiently exploited. Suppose I want to break DRM technique X. At least in theory, all I have to do is arrange for a public domain work to be protected by technique X, without that particular instance of X covering any copyrighted works. Now I can write and publish a tool for breaking technique X, and even demonstrate it on the public domain work, without (theoretically) falling afoul of the DMCA.

I doubt the courts would actually go for this interpretation, but it would be an interesting test case.

Re:Wrong about US' DMCA

[hyc]

Or just create your own work, no need to go fishing for something from the public domain.

I've recorded several music CDs in my various bands thru the years. I could go find the current favorite CD DRM scheme, ask for it to be used on my next run of CDs, and go to town. But I guess DVDs are more interesting these days.

Hi-Def camcorders are getting pretty cheap now. Go make a home movie, master it in BluRay format, and have some small-run disc printing house produce it for you. Bingo.

Re:Wrong about US' DMCA

[nunojsilva]

The idea should work, the problem, as you point, is that you're relying on courts (actually the same courts which sometimes rule stuff like patenting ideas). And there is plenty of room for "ambiguity".

A DRM-breaker will always be useful to break DRM used in public-domain works (even if we wait 70 years (or more, if it is a Fantasia DVD)). But it can be used to break copyright protected works too. In a country where people go bankrupt because of the AA, that's too much uncertainty and risk.

But the problem is that not only should people be able to break DRM on PD and share tools to do so, restricting access to public domain should never happen. This proposal points the root of this evil.

Re:Wrong about US' DMCA

[jpallas]

Are you a lawyer? Neither am I, but your "plain reading" is not what I see in the words you quoted. Your interpretation seems to be, if a "technological measure" (some DRM system) is ever used on any non-copyrighted work, then it suddenly loses its special status as a technological measure protecting a copyrighted work, and anyone can circumvent it with impunity.

The straight-forward reading is that any technological measure that is ever used to protect any copyrighted work acquires the special status that makes it illegal to circumvent it, regardless of the whether the circumvention is to enable a legal use.

The fact that a DRM system was once used on something that didn't have copyright protection wouldn't have any more bearing on its coverage by DMCA than, say, the fact that I'm breaking the DRM for a legal purpose such as fair use. But lawyers seem to agree that the DMCA makes it illegal to break DRM for legal uses. So, I'd go with the assumption that the DMCA was written by clever lawyers who did not leave a huge hole in it which has not been spotted by other clever lawyers.

Re:Wrong about US' DMCA

[Sloppy]

Are you a lawyer?

No.

Your interpretation seems to be, if a "technological measure" (some DRM system) is ever used on any non-copyrighted work, then it suddenly loses its special status as a technological measure protecting a copyrighted work, and anyone can circumvent it with impunity.

No, it doesn't lose its status as a technological measure that limits access to the work; what happens is that bypassing that technological measure (in that particular instance) ceases to be "circumvention."

DMCA is very clearly and deliberately constructed to make "circumvention" be a variable thing that depends upon the will of the copyright holder. They had to do this, or else there wouldn't be any way for any customer to legally use a DRMed work, all DVDs players (licensed or not) would be illegal, and total DVD and Blu-ray sales to date would be $0. Having there be some way to legally bypass technological measures that limit access to a work, isn't a hole in the law, it's one of the IP lobby's goals.

Even if you take the most cynical (though justified IMHO) point of view -- that DMCA is intended to serve the interests of MPAA companies exclusively with absolutely no regard for the public interests -- here is no escaping the fact that this law was intended to make copyright holders be the final authority on what uses of a DRMed work are permitted and what aren't. When there isn't a copyright holder (the work is PD) the law doesn't apply, and when the copyright holder approves of a use, this law permits it. Every one of the prohibitions come down to that "without the authority of the copyright owner" and not only does this law explicitly say it but that is also certainly what the people who purchased this law wanted. It's just inconceivable that this point will ever be argued against. The pro-IP lobby is totally going to support that point of view. Keeping Congress from listing allowed/prohibited uses and putting that power into the copyright holders' hands, is the best thing they could have gotten out of this law (and the worst thing that could have happened to Fair Use) and they got it. That fact that non-MPAA members will also get to authorize under what circumstances that their own movies are allowed to be played, is just the other edge of the sword.

When we get into discussion of tools that bypass a technological measure (e.g. DVD players), then the "is primarily designed or produced for the purpose of" and "has only limited commercially significant purpose or use other than" parts come into play, so yeah, I wouldn't count on a judge agreeing that you (a copyright holder) are allowed to authorize or prohibit DVD players, or that it's legal to manufacture and sell players for Public Domain movies. That determination is going to be totally subjective and arbitrary, so whoever has the most money to fight, will have a major advantage, but it's certainly not totally off the table. Get the right judge or spend the right amount of money, and you could win.

The straight-forward reading is that any technological measure that is ever used to protect any copyrighted work acquires the special status that makes it illegal to circumvent it..

[Emphasis mine] Yes, but keep in mind how this law very carefully and deliberately distinguishes between "circumvent" and "bypass." It is illegal for you to play a copyrighted + CSS-protected DVD without authorization from the copyright holder, but it is not necessarily illegal for you to play a CSS-protected DVD. My whole point is that it all comes down to whether or not the copyright holder authorizes. And if there is no copyright holder (i.e. it's not a "work protected under this title") then the question never even comes up.

The fact that a DRM system was once used on som

Re:Wrong about US' DMCA

[Sloppy]

Do it! Just keep an eye out for anything that you sign or agree to when you end up applying the DRM, i.e. the mechanism for how you "ask for" the CD DRM scheme, the EULAs for any software that you use to do it, etc.

Also, I wouldn't be sure that all Blu-ray masters necessarily have AACS on 'em, and BD+ is even far less likely. But if you can master an AACS-protected disc without agreeing to transfer your authorization authority to someone else (e.g. some DRM consortium) then that ought to be enough.

Re:Wrong about US' DMCA

[hyc]

According to this link

http://www.pacificdisc.com/PricingBluRay.html

all BluRay discs are required to have AACS. I also downloaded the license agreement from that page, it's 159 pages long. Not a trivial undertaking...

Somebody's getting fired....

[fredjh]

The MPAA and RIAA must have missed their monthly payment to President Lula.

Re:In the USA it is legal to break DRM.. Not Quite

[Anonymous Coward]

under the DMCA it is legal to write an introduction to a set of public domain works then apply DRM to the collection ( ie the combined introduction and public domain works ) .

In order to break the DRM on the public works you would then have to illegally break the DRM on the legally protected introduction, not a catch 22 situation as the corporations have no legal downside to applying DRM to the entire work.

This would not be the case in the proposed law - if the corporation applied DRM to the entire work( the combined introduction and public works) then under the proposed law the DRM application is illegal on the public works and it is legal for anyone to break it on the entire work. I'll have to check again but I think there is also other proposed punitive measures against illegally applying DRM measures to public works.

Under the proposed law a corporation could DRM the introduction, but the public works contained must be excluded from DRM, which is very different from the DMCA.

Brazil lately really seems to "get it"

[Anonymous Coward]

I recall reading many negative things about Brazil 10 years ago or more. Nothing that I've read recently makes me think that they aren't pretty darned progressive. As a US citizen I've been looking for a place to which I'd enjoy immigrating (Norway is at the top of my list, currently). I wonder if I shouldn't take another look at Brazil (at least Portuguese is a Romance language, should be easier to learn since I already speak one of those fluently).

I wonder, are they as progressive as they seem lately?

Re:Brazil lately really seems to "get it"

[nunojsilva]

Their president knows what free software is,

We had to choose: either we could go to the kitchen to prepare the dish that we wanted to eat with the flavors that we wanted to add and we could put a little Brazilian flavor into the food, or we could go eat what Microsoft wanted to sell us. Simply speaking, the idea of freedom won.

Lula, at FISL 10 (10th International Free Software Forum)

That might be a good pointer, but, IIRC, his term will end in some months.

Internet Speed

[nurb432]

Well, that blows that. Too bad about the topless girls.

Am I the only one who thinks limiting encryption

[hellop2]

Could turn out to be a bad thing in the long run? Now, of course, I think the allowing circumvention stuff is great. But is it really necessary to make it illegal to encrypt certain things?

Couldn't a company comply with fair use while still using DRM? Like encrypted iTunes songs that only play on your iPod, but then allow a DRM free version for download to your computer.

Brazil has an unfair advantage...

[ibsteve2u]

They can look North at we in the U.S. of A. and learn from how we screwed up democracy, capitalism, free enterprise, the creative process.

The Law itself is kind of open sourced

[Anonymous Coward]

Has anyone noticed that the draft of the reformation of Brazilian is open to public consultation?

"Welcome (a) to the Public Consultation to review the current Copyright Act (Law 9.610/98).

Here you will find the proposal for a draft Law to the suggested changes. Is also available with a consolidated version of Law 9.610/98, which incorporates the points to be discussed at consultation. So it will be easier to understand the content of the revision in the context of current law so they can see how changes will be incorporated."

From here: http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=pt&tl=en&u=http://www.cultura.gov.br/consultadireitoautoral/lei-961098-consolidada/