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EFF: DMCA Hinders Exposing More Software Cheats Like Volkswagen's
ideonexus writes: Automakers have argued that the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act makes it unlawful for researchers to review the code controlling their vehicles without the manufacturer's permission, making it extremely difficult to expose software cheats like the one Volkswagen used to fake emissions tests. Arguing that this obfuscation of code goes so far as to endanger lives at times, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) maintains that, "When you entrust your health, safety, or privacy to a device, the law shouldn't punish you for trying to understand how that device works and whether it is trustworthy."
No, they don't. The RIAA/etc are unhappy with it, because in their mind it doesn't do enough. They want laws that will let them ram eternal unbreakable copyright down our throats, eliminates fair use or any other provisions that don't involve paying them truckloads of money for stuff written before most of us were even born.
They accepted DMCA as what they could get at the time, but don't make the mistake of sleeping on it, because their lobbyists and lawyers will do whatever they can to get it strengthened, whether in congress or in court rulings.
The problem in the USA is that corporation can fund political parties without any limit. Therefore corporations choose which party can or can't run.
There are only two parties and both of them support the DMCA. To have a chance to repeal the DMCA, USA needs to reform political parties financing rules.
It went as follows: . . .
"Surprisingly, the EPA wrote in [PDF] to the Copyright Office to oppose the exemptions we’re seeking. In doing this, the EPA is asking the Copyright Office to leave copyright law in place as a barrier to a wide range of activities that are perfectly legal under environmental regulations: ecomodding that actually improves emissions and fuel economy, modification of vehicles for off-road racing, or activities that have nothing to do with pollution. "
I don't think "Suprisingly" is a word is a word I would use to describe what the EPA did there. I realize many people think they are the champions of the common man trying to give us a clean environment but their actions are always consistently protectionist for large corporations. Many who have followed their history have commented on how they seem to protect large corporations who pollute from big lawsuits and replace them with a slap on the wrist fine. Smaller competitors, on the other hand, get crippling business requirements with ever increasing regulations. That's our government. :-)
The only one, arguably, would be Lincoln in 1860, since at the time the Republican Party was still an insurgent, and was still in the final stages of supplanting the Whig party, but even that one would be a stretch, as they were clearly in the top two (and would remain firmly ensconced to this day as such).
And more importantly, we haven't had an actual supplanting of either of the two parties in the 155 years since then, despite it happening twice in the preceding 50 or so years. Instead, the two parties are so thoroughly entrenched that the more successful tactic has been to infiltrate and take over one of the two parties from within. Both parties have changed noticeably on a number of issues, to the point that they're almost unrecognizable when compared with their original versions (and, more ironically, are arguably closer to the OTHER one's original beliefs/constituencies).