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Economist: US Congress Should Hack Digital Millennium Copyright Act
retroworks writes This week's print edition of The Economist has an essay on the Right to Tinker with hardware. From the story: "Exactly why copyright law should be involved in something that ought to be a simple matter of consumer rights is hard to fathom. Any rational interpretation would suggest that when people buy or pay off the loan on a piece of equipment—whether a car, a refrigerator or a mobile phone—they own it, and should be free to do what they want with it. Least of all should they have to seek permission from the manufacturer or the government."
Government regulations sure didn't help Eric Garner
...and when it blows up in their face, they should be allowed to sue to manufacturer too.
never bring a twinkie to a food fight.
They should repeal it completely. But that will not happen as every one of those congress-critters are bought and paid for.
Congress wants a more strict DMCA. Hell I bet some of those on capitol hill would support a death penalty for copyright violations.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
The DMCA was so badly written as to more or less entrench rent-seeking and remove property ownership from consumers.
Instead of saying "yes, you bought this product, it's yours", they've entrenched the "oh, you've only licensed it and we will tell you how you're allowed to use it".
Sorry, but if I bought it, I retain right of first sale. Which means I should be able to do anything I want with it, because it's my property.
This absurd notion that they still own it and define what I can do with it is stupid. If I don't own it, why should I pay you for it?
But, of course, the law was written to hastily ensure corporate rent seeking, because it was paid for by lobbyists.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
>> Any rational interpretation would suggest that when people buy or pay off the loan on a piece of equipment—whether a car, a refrigerator or a mobile phone—they own it, and should be free to do what they want with it.
This argument has already lost in the public square WHEN IT HARMS OTHER PEOPLE. For example:
* If you own a refrigerator, it's already illegal to just discharge the coolant into the environment
* If you own a car, it's already illegal to just set it on fire, and in many places you can't store it certain places (like your front lawn)
If you narrow it down a bit (e.g., "root your phone = legal but proceed at your own risk") I could get behind this guy, but when we're starting to talk about hacking automobile electronics that other drivers and pedestrians depend upon for their own safety...you can probably see where we're developing a slippery slope.
Any rational interpretation would suggest that when people buy or pay off the loan on a piece of equipment—whether a car, a refrigerator or a mobile phone—they own it, and should be free to do what they want with it. Least of all should they have to seek permission from the manufacturer or the government.
Any rational interpretation would suggest that when rich people and large corporations buy or pay off the loan on a congressperson, they own it, and should be free to get whatever legislation out of it they see fit. Least of all should they have to deal with interference from busybody economists trying to tell them what's "rational."
Dan Aris
Fun. Free. Online. RPG. BattleMaster.
If I buy software, shouldn't I have the right to modify it? But I bet most software LICENSES have wording that says I cannot.
Remember kids, if you're not paying for the service, YOU ARE THE PRODUCT THAT IS BEING SOLD.
A complete repeal of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act would also repeal the Online Copyright Infringement Liability Limitation Act (OCILLA). Such a repeal would make it much easier to find online service providers liable for their subscribers' actions. Remember that YouTube's successful defense against Viacom was that it qualified for the OCILLA safe harbor.
What's wrong with a system that allows fucktards like Religious cult nuts, Anita Sarkeesian (FF) and Zoe Quinn (CVV/LV) to take down videos that criticise them? And they do so based on minor technicalities such as using a screen capture or 30s sequence from their own publicly available photos/clips? Youtube critics are there to be silenced or have their account suspended!
Nowhere in the Economist article do they use the word "hack" because - again - some dipshit is using the word "hack" to mean approximately whatever the hell they want it to mean.
"Hack" != "use"
"Hack" != "terminate"
"Hack" != "amend"
Either send your editors back to junior high grammar, or maybe exercise some editorial judgement and stop this silliness.
-Styopa
Removing the DMCA is not possible. It would require a complete revolution against the US Government on the issue eliminating all participants in every branch of the Government as too many people see the rights of users to control their electronic equipment as the catalyst for a world wide economic depression the likes of which we have never seen,
The US Population has been conditioned since the days of the Atari 2600 Crash of 1983 to believe that limiations on who has the right to make software should be tightly controlled and if its not the result is Market Collapse. This is because the NES "Saved" the Video game industry.
When you "buy" a phone from Verizon, you're not actually "buying" a phone. You're leasing a phone. It is not and will not ever be your phone, it belongs to Verizon, you're just using it.
I was under the impression that this problem was limited to carriers using the CDMA2000 stack, which allows the carrier to program the subscriber identity directly into the handset. In the United States market, that means Verizon, Sprint, and Sprint's MVNOs. The GSM stack, on the other hand, was designed from the ground up for unlocked phones and SIM-only plans to be sold separately, where the manufacturer answers only to the FCC and the GSM patent pool, not any particular carrier.
At first, AT&T argued that even acoustic couplers were illegal. See Hush-A-Phone.
It would fail, but there's fuck all that stops anyone, individual or manufacturer from suing for any, or no, reason.
Buying a copy of a copyrighted computer program on the open market gives the owner of a copy the right to resell that copy (17 USC 109) and make necessary private modifications (17 USC 117(a)(1)). Only shrink-wrap and click-wrap agreements take away this right.
you don't have the modifiable part of the software.
Best Slashdot Co
You CAN photocopy a dead tree book.
Backup, if the original copy is destroyed, free lending to family.
And if it's out of copyright, YES, to a million friends.
Why not to a million friends if it's in copyright? Because you're taking market away from the copyright owner who would sell their copy to those million friends.
But how does that apply to a device you're NOT copying?
PS lets remember, NOBODY shares with a million friends. A few dozen at most. Who share with none or a very few friends, who share with one, one or a very few friends and, very quickly, the copies have gone to everyone, with NOT ONE having shared with a million friends. Not even a thousand. And almost none of them even to a hundred.
So please stop with the hyperbollocks of "millions of friends" because if THAT is the problem which copyright and DMCA are meant to solve, THEN THEY ARE REDUNDANT since those acts NEVER HAPPEN with P2P.
You're seeing the intersection of 2 things.
The first thing is OCILLA (17 USC 512). Online service providers have a duty under OCILLA to take down a subscriber's copy of allegedly infringing work on a copyright owner's reasonable request. The subscriber can plead that the use is not infringing, such as if it is a fair use of the complainant's work, to have the work put back up.
But the second thing is that service providers reserve the right to refuse service to anyone for any reason (other than perhaps membership in a protected class under antidiscrimination statutes). This goes double for service providers that offer a service to subscribers without charge, such as YouTube. So instead of actually putting the video back up, the provider can say "We have put your video back up pursuant to OCILLA. However, we have since decided to decline to continue to host it for other reasons." YouTube has chosen to do this with videos identified as copies of works owned by certain publishers pursuant to confidential Content ID contracts with those publishers.
there's fuck all that stops anyone, individual or manufacturer from suing for any, or no, reason.
There exist rules against suits without merit, which can cause the plaintiff to have to pay the defendant's reasonable attorney's fees, sometimes with punitive damages tacked on for wasting the defendant's time. If plaintiff's counsel repeatedly fails to diligently investigate the merit of each case, counsel might end up fined or even disbarred.
And the corporations would argue that they should be able to do as they please with their bought and paid for law makers. Duh...
The US Population has been conditioned since the days of the Atari 2600 Crash of 1983 to believe that limiations on who has the right to make software should be tightly controlled and if its not the result is Market Collapse.
I've collected some of the console peasants' arguments in this page. But this 1980s argument that "the market needs the console maker to act as a sole curator with veto power" has largely evaporated thanks to the Internet. First, it's easier to find a reviewer whose tastes match yours. Second, the playable demo has been around since the shareware era. And third, much of the 1983-1984 crash of the North American video game market was due to distributors that would offer retailers a money-back guarantee for returned unsold product but then go bankrupt. Paid downloads have made returned unsold product largely a thing of the past.
What kind of idiot economist says things like this? It's designed to enrich the corporations and take away the rights of the People. It does a great job at that. It's what critics said would happen before it was enacted and the power structure likes it just fine. You sound like a fool when you pretend it's a mistake.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
First, it is a contract of adhesion: by the time you are forced to "agree" to it you already own the software, so there is nothing for you to agree to.
Nowadays PC software is often sold as a download instead of as a CD, which means you usually have to agree to some terms before clicking Buy. And even for software distributed on CD, publishers have started to print the current EULA URL on the package for you to take to the Internet terminal in the store and read.
For the same reason, there is nothing you gain by agreeing (i.e., there is no "consideration")
Even failing the above, the consideration for a click-wrap contract is that you're allowed to decrypt the copy that you own. Defenses to the tort of copyright infringement (17 USC 117 etc.) are not defenses to the separate tort of circumvention if I understand Universal v. Reimerdes correctly.
Second, US copyright law explicitly says that installing software (e.g. copying it onto a hard drive) doesn't count as "making a copy" for the purpose of copyright.
It's still illegal to make and distribute the tools that allow you to circumvent the restrictions on installing software without clicking through the contract.
The author of SMBDis disagrees with you, as does every warez group that has cracked an app.
Essentially what was happening was that a bunch of publishers were putting out a flood of poorly balanced me-too games for Atari 2600, and retailers grew tired of allocating valuable shelf space to games that weren't selling. Distributors tried to reassure retailers by offering money back for returned unsold inventory, but then a bunch of distributors went bankrupt in order not to have to honor this guarantee. For more, see "1983 crash" in Wikipedia or All the Tropes. It took Nintendo and its "Official Nintendo Seal" imprimatur to bring some level of trust back to the North American video game market.
It is in no way in my interests as a consumer to have, say, a region-locked DVD player, or a Blu-ray player that won't let me skip to the contents I want to watch instead of sitting through legal notices that don't even apply in my jurisdiction
In theory, it benefits you as a consumer in that you'll have more than zero desirable movies for your DVD player. Studios were threatening not to release any movies in the format unless the format includes region locks and UOPs. What good is a DVD player without movies to play on it?
ha ha ha ha ha ha Ya, they should, but just mentioning that made me laugh. Like you can get anything good out of congress anymore. Fuck the government!
The DMCA needs to be thrown out with a bunch of the other fecal detritus that's been inserted in modern US law, to the detriment of everyone.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
1) Allow circumvention to permit fair use.
2) Add consequences for unreasonable take-down requests.
And the correct market response to that would have been to call their bluff, and then enjoy the movies from those that survived. The idea that all the studios would have stopped releasing their content anywhere but in theatres is utterly implausible and was never a serious threat.
The idea is that studios would have ignored DVD and stuck to VHS and its generation loss, Rovi Macrovision analog copy protection, and NTSC/PAL/SECAM/MESECAM region lock until they could launch their own competing format with better DRM. Witness Video CD and SVCD never taking off in North America, and witness the industrywide switch from HD DVD to Blu-ray Disc when the latter offered region locking and stronger DRM (BD+, ROM Mark, and lack of rich menus on non-AACS discs).
Without the government nanny state looking over our shoulders, we can crack open an egg and heat it in two seconds in our modified micrOMG it burns!!! Big brother, where art thou?
"Least of all should they have to seek permission from the manufacturer or the government."
Has the author seen the incoming Congress?
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
The general public as audience, via their respective governments, can impose whatever terms they want to ensure fairness
Not if the creative industries have captured the governments through their co-owned news media.
Recently repaired the voicemail system at work that runs on an old 486. Every tech they had assumed that the power supply was proprietary because they hadn't seen it before. And they admittedly fired the only guy with enough experience to know the difference. Their suggestion was to buy a new model.
Instead I looked at the diagram on the inside cover (they obviously didn't) and bought an AT power supply from amazon for 20 bucks.
That's too much horsepower! It will accelerate too quickly and endanger society! Please report to your officially licensed local dealership to arrange a repair of your vehicle!
Failure to comply could result in death or legal action.
Die in a druid fire, you wiccan faggot.