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."

Comments

Hack it?

[Lumpy]

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.

Re:Hack it?

[Anonymous Coward]

Remember when Senator Orrin Hatch said copyright holders should get to destroy infringers' PCs?

DMCA was always flawed ...

[gstoddart]

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.

Re:DMCA was always flawed ...

[Anonymous Coward]

The DMCA was so badly written as to more or less entrench rent-seeking and remove property ownership from consumers.

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.

Re:DMCA was always flawed ...

[Pikoro]

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".

Re:DMCA was always flawed ...

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

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.

Exactly. 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, or a PVR where I can't transfer my HD recordings to a different PVR if the first player is defective and needs to be returned. There is literally no-one who gains from these restrictions, not even the content creators or the manufacturers.

However, the current state of intellectual property laws prevents anyone from (lawfully) competing in that market with a better offering, because patents and anti-circumvention rules make for very good ways to be anti-competitive without actually breaking any laws. And that is in the interests of the organisations that control those rights.

Already lost the "complete freedom" argument...

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

>> 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.

Re:Already lost the "complete freedom" argument...

[Anonymous Coward]

Straw man -- go f* yourself. You are the problem with American society today and I hope that you are just trolling versus truly believing what you just wrote. The gist of the argument isn't people should be allowed to use things they own or rent to hurt others, the argument is: when someone purchases a product, they should be entitled to own it.

The real problem here is that various forms of intellectual property have been combined to squeeze consumers into a corner. [X] device makes life easier, has become a social norm, is required for work, or whatever other justification for its purchase. Company [Y] has a patent on [X] so that for the next 21 years the control it's distribution. They apply a firmware that restricts the usage of [X] device relying upon the DMCA and copyright law to prevent you, or others, from making the device more useful or extending it's life beyond the artificial limitations imposed by Company [Y].

Despite that fact that you've paid the device off, Company [Y] has stopped supporting that version of the device, and you have physical possession and the ability to modify it, doing so is now a criminal offense (despite not causing harm to anyone) because the government says so. It's completely ridiculous--at least to me. I do not put corporate profits above all things, which is probably the failing here. The fact that we purchase and accept these artificial and economically driven limitations is a sad state of affairs.

I have a 7 year old laptop that is perfectly usable, except for the fact that the manufacture has locked it down specifically to create an artificial limitation on it's usefulness in order to maximize their profits. I no longer purchase any products from that company and encourage everyone I know to move away. The US needs a return to quality, not an headlong dash into planned obsolescence backed by governmental protectionism.

It's pitiful. Completely pitiful. And argument that it "could" harm the children should, similarly, be thrown away.

God damn it; I'm mad as hell...but I'll keep taking it because I have bills to pay and a family to feed. Motherf*ers.

Bought and paid for?

[danaris]

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

shouldn't this apply to software too?

[jsepeta]

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.

Don't repeal the entire DMCA

[tepples]

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.

Suits without merit

[tepples]

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.

Re:Suits without merit

[Jawnn]

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.

Yes, but that does not prevent assholes from bringing worthless lawsuits. It might discourage even marginally circumspect lawyers from doing so, but the burden to challenge the merit of an action, once initiated, rests with the respondent.

Re:Selection of notable titles

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

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.