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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.
I wish them well with this and I'm going to give them money, but money of course is a huge problem now. This is a government and a court that finds things Constitutional or not based on what corporations want, and corporations and law enforcement want broad, hard to interpret laws that can be used to put little people in jail for the 'crime' of bothering the powerful. The DMCA is a terrible law that has been abused more than used, just like how the allegedly anti terrorism Patriot Act is mostly used to prosecute petty drug crimes, quell dissent and anti corporate behavior and other things nobody wants to give up a shred of freedom over.
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!
You're being sarcastic, but the reality is the government does have to respond, and they do have to give an answer that seems halfway reasonable, which actually, in this case is hard. So if you're the kind of person who likes reading legal fights, this is a moment to sit back, relax, and enjoy the show.
Especially since the outcome is likely to be so good.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Hollywood supports Republicans? Really?
If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond