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EFF Is Suing the US Government To Invalidate the DMCA's DRM Provisions (boingboing.net)
Cory Doctorow, writes for BoingBoing: The Electronic Frontier Foundation has just filed a lawsuit that challenges the Constitutionality of Section 1201 of the DMCA, the "Digital Rights Management" provision of the law, a notoriously overbroad law that bans activities that bypass or weaken copyright access-control systems, including reconfiguring software-enabled devices (making sure your IoT light-socket will accept third-party lightbulbs; tapping into diagnostic info in your car or tractor to allow an independent party to repair it) and reporting security vulnerabilities in these devices. EFF is representing two clients in its lawsuit: Andrew "bunnie" Huang, a legendary hardware hacker whose NeTV product lets users put overlays on DRM-restricted digital video signals; and Matthew Green, a heavyweight security researcher at Johns Hopkins who has an NSF grant to investigate medical record systems and whose research plans encompass the security of industrial firewalls and finance-industry "black boxes" used to manage the cryptographic security of billions of financial transactions every day. Both clients reflect the deep constitutional flaws in the DMCA, and both have standing to sue the US government to challenge DMCA 1201 because of its serious criminal provisions (5 years in prison and a $500K fine for a first offense).Doctorow has explained aspects of this for The Guardian today. You should also check Huang's blog post on this.
and then on the plank . . .
Har har. Enjoy your pathological liar and her rapist husband.
The government's response? LOL, you Republicans crack me up. We elected President Hope & Change 7 years ago in case you forgot, and we now have the most transparent government in history which works for the *people*, not big Republican-donating industries like the movie industry.
The government's response will be quite predictable: the EFF is correct and we need to quit enforcing these Republican corporatist crony laws right now!
I can't wait to see the looks on those Hollywood Republican's faces when Obama tells his Justice Department lawyers to give it to them good and hard! For the People!
Do you have ESP?