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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."
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.
>> 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.
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.
This is true with one exception - the DMCA was not badly written, it was exceptionally well written. This was the INTENDED effect.
They would have you believe that the DMCA is to stop people from downloading copyrighted songs/videos/etc, but the true purpose was to provide them a legal means of market control. If no one can make (DVD/Blue ray players/that one tool required to fix your car) EXCEPT them, then they have a strangle hold on the market and can do as they please.
The greatest scam politicians pull (And do so often) is convincing the public that a law is for something completely different then it actually is.
This is also why acoustic couplers were invented. Since anything plugged directly into the phone line was "against the law", hackers worked around it. You plugged your phone into the line, and the acoustic coupler into your computer/device, and you placed the telephone handset on the acoustic coupler. You were not actually plugging your device into the phone line, thereby bypassing the "law".
"Freedom in the USA is not the ability to do what you want. It is the ability to stop others from doing what THEY want"