OK, but the point of my post is still valid. Even after copyright expires, the law must be broken in order for one to get the tools that allow you to circumvent access controls, even though you do have the legal right to what's on the other side of the access controls.
Maybe, and maybe not. It is unclear as to whether every single instance of circumvention software changing hands is considered trafficking. Even if that changing of hands is considered trafficking, no one is injured, so no one is able to initiate a civil suit, and criminal suits are also not valid, because the "trafficking" is not done for the purposes of commercial advantage or private financial gain.
If that doesn't ease your fears, maybe this does. I have a copy of DeCSS. I don't remember where I obtained it from. If any public domain work is encrypted using CSS, send it to me. I will decrypt it for you and send it back. I'm sure there are others who will do the same.
The DMCA cases really sound like the lawmakers are trying to reclassify fair use rights as fair use privilages, privilages that we can't complain about losing when they're taken away.
Fair use simply means that you can't be prosecuted for copyright infringement for certain uses of a copyrighted work. It doesn't mean that you can't be prosecuted under the interstate commerce clause, and it most certainly doesn't mean that the copyright holder of a work is required to help you perform that fair use. In fact, it is the right of the copyright holder to prevent fair use through technological means.
Maybe it is possible that, with the advent of widespread digital communications, copyright law really is obsolete and the DMCA is just a flailing, panicked attempt to prop it up for a bit longer.
That is my own personal belief.
I just wish all this junk would go away so I can spend my time thinking about more interesting problems.
I'm not sure exactly why you need to spend your time thinking about the DMCA. If you're not a copyright infringer... Let me restate that, since I don't know anyone who's never infringed on copyright (basically anyone who's used winzip or the old netscape). If you're not a major copyright infringer, or willfully helping others to infringe copyright, you don't have anything to worry about from the DMCA. The point of the DMCA is to get the Dmitry's of the world, who make a living helping others break the law, because we are a nation of lawbreakers, so it's impossible to go after everyone.
Hell, the primary purpose of Dr. Felten's work is to merely prove that SDMI is a flawed approach to preventing copyright. Yet RIAA is (apparently) going to succeed at using the DMCA to prevent him from presenting that work.
This is not the case. Felton already presented the work. The RIAA has agreed not to prosecute him. Felton then sued the RIAA to get a declaratory judgement. The court denied to rule on that declaratory judgement, presumably because he had no standing and the case was moot (though I haven't been able to read the ruling).
I suspect, however, that there are a great deal many more people using DeCSS for purely legitimate purposes than for copyright infringement.
By the wording of the law, use is irrelevant if the product is created or marketed to circumvent copyright. This case would be a lot different if the RIAA sued someone for making a linux DVD player which did not allow access to the unencrypted MPEG.
If I might ask, what do you believe should exist in place of copyright law?
Absolutely nothing. Contract law could be used in some cases, but that would mainly be for B2B dealings.
Do you believe that all intellectual property should belong to the public domain?
Pretty much, although there wouldn't really be a term "public domain" any more, for obvious reasons.
I agree that copyright law has major problems (especially after the Sonny Bono Copyright Extension), but I am not sure that legal protection of ownership of intellectual property is a bad thing.
IMHO, authors of creative works would actually be better compensated, because the true intellectual property will always be something that is part of them, something that no one else can take away. As a software programmer, I can certainly say without a doubt that a good programmer is irreplacible for maintaining or improving his work. Even with the best documented and cleanest written software in the world, the original author(s) will always have an advantage over others. I suspect that the same is true of writers and performers, and as such I suspect that copyright law is unnecessary to provide incentive to almost all of those authors. Good authors of any type of work create because it's what they love, or what they do best. As long as they are going to make a decent living off those creations, they will continue to create. Good creators might make $50K a year instead of $500K a year, but I don't think this is going to act as a deterrent because those who are good at something tend to not do it just because of the possibility of huge salaries.
Maybe I'm wrong, and in any case, I doubt I'll see the end of copyright law during my lifetime.
However, it's illegal to posess the tools needed to circumvent the access controls on a work, even after the copyright expires.
BZZT. Sorry, possession is not illegal under the DMCA, nor could it ever be, since possession of a decryption tool without intent to distribute does not fall under any of the provisions of Article I, Section 8 of the Constution (which would likely be the copyright clause or the interstate commerce clause). A law against possession of decryption tools would be unconstitutional under the 10th ammendment.
You keep using that word. I do not think it meanms what you think it means.:)
The E2node on it says "Essentially propaganda used by certain groups, companies, nations and/or people in order to invoke F.ear, U.ncertainty, and D.oubt about something." I find that perfectly applicable to what you are doing (spreading unjustified fear) when you try to say that the DMCA will affect the free dissemination of public domain works.
How are you supposed to distribute an unencrypted version of the work, if you are prohibited from using tools that decrypt the work? Or will it become the responsibility of each person to write his/her own version of deCSS -- without ever discussing any aspect of it with any other person -- so that he/she can decrypt works and allow the perfectly legitimate public domain usage of them?
It only takes one person to decrypt the work. After that it can be freely distributed without anyone having to do any further decryption. I have my copy of DeCSS (and no, possession is not illegal), so if no one else will do it, I will offer to decrypt any public domain work protected by CSS for you. Besides, distributing DeCSS to someone for the sole purpose of decrypting public domain works would not be a criminal act, and since no one would be injured, no one would have grounds for a civil suit either. Even in the highly unlikely case that you got caught, someone had some ridiculous grounds for saying they were injured, and you lost the case (all three of which are extremely unlikely), you would have to pay a maximum of $2500 in statutory damages. BFD.
Neither the government nor any corporation is going to waste its time chasing around people doing this. And that's why your statement is FUD.
BTW, nice nested blockquote method, I've decided to "steal" it (I wonder if it works on most browsers):).
So apparently it's not a weight of usage argument after all. DMCA bans things like DeCSS on the mere potential of their misuse. It's like banning hammers because they could be used to kill someone.
You're a moron.
* (A) is primarily designed or produced for the purpose of
circumventing protection afforded by a technological measure that
effectively protects a right of a copyright owner under this
title in a work or a portion thereof;
* (B) has only limited commercially significant purpose or use
other than to circumvent protection afforded by a technological
measure that effectively protects a right of a copyright owner
under this title in a work or a portion thereof; or
* (C) is marketed by that person or another acting in concert
with that person with that person's knowledge for use in
circumventing protection afforded by a technological measure that
effectively protects a right of a copyright owner under this
title in a work or a portion thereof.
Feel free to reply, but I'm done talking to you about it. RTFDMCA.
I think he spent the night in jail from what I remember (he posted here after). However, the point is that you said I was being paranoid about people being arrested for violating the DMCA if they write DeCSS tools. This clearly shows I am not. It has happened and will continue to do so.
Again, I don't think he was arrested for violating the DMCA. I'll check the slashdot archives to see if I can confirm this.
And when I referred to you being paranoid, I meant about the DMCA restricting fair use, or even doing anything to stop the distribution of circumvention tools. Yes, some people will go to jail, but it is likely to be only those who attempt to profit off the creation of those circumvention tools, like Dmitry.
But even on the amazingly far off chance you are right about criminal charges, he still would have been sued for every dime he's ever going to make by the MPAA (see various DeCSS lawsuits going on now, including 2600).
2600 is a corporation trying to make a profit off the distribution of DeCSS. I have very little sympathy for them. As for the creator of the product being sued into bankruptcy, it is sad, but it's not all that bad. Just ask OJ Simpson.
Also, there is a very big jurisdictional question as to whether the federal government has the right to enforce a law against the act of an individual creating a product which does not in and of itself infringe copyright if that individual does not engage in the commerce of that product. I would suspect that such a prosecution would be deemed unconstitutional under the 10th ammendment.
The bottom line is that the DMCA is a way for media corporations to make money off of their creations forever, in every format ever devised, with indefinate copyright and absolutely no fair use whatsoever.
I always thought that was the Sonny Bono Copyright extention act that did that. Seriously, the DMCA is nothing more than a very slightly more effective way to enforce the copyright laws which are already on the books. The main reason people are getting so up in arms about it is that they are so used to breaking copyright laws in their daily life.
I oppose the DMCA on the same grounds that I oppose copyright law, but I feel that it is going to have very little effect on the mass majority of the public, so I dislike the high levels of attention it has been getting from people claiming that its effect is much worse than it actually is. I support fighting against the DMCA and copyright law through the creation of copylefted (by my definition, not RMS's) software which can easily nullify their effect if only 10% of the particular industry used it. I support fighting the constitutionality of the DMCA where appropriate (sadly, it seem seems to be well contructed enough to make that approach somewhat useless), and modifications of the constitution in order to protect against it and other laws like it.
Oh, yeah, you are right.. NOT! Ask Johanssen about whether or not he went to jail for writing DeCSS. He sure as $hit did!! They took all his PCs too. And he was in FINLAND (or some Scandavian country)!!!
I searched on google and the only information that I can find on his arrest says that the charges were contributory copyright infringement, not violation of the DMCA. I also can't find any evidence that he spent a single day in jail. You may be right on this one, but if so I find it hard to believe that the Dmitry case is getting so much more publicity, considering that Johanssen was not trying to profit off DeCSS.
Imagine if he'd been HERE. He'd have been bent over some sink and raped with a baton by some fascist police ba$tard like that Hatian immigrant.
I suspect that if he were here no criminal charges would have been filed.
If you are a regular Joe, then you are screwed, because the uberhackers will go to jail or be sued into the poorhouse if they give you a tool to exercise your fair use rights.
Consider DeCSS. Neither has happened. You're being paranoid.
This is true, but the DMCA places hurdles on Copyrighted material ever being forced to become Public Domain.
Read my other posts, this is complete FUD.
Not to re-hash an old debacle, but he is an employee of a company that did this. He didn't personally traffic this for his own demise.
He is charged with both personally trafficking it and being part of a conspiracy to traffick it. He may or may not be guilty of that, but that's what he is charged with.
He may be guilty of being an employee of this company which carried this traffic to our borders, but shouldn't it strike you as strange if Bill Gates was personally indicted for enacting a monopoly?
Would it strike you strange if the kingpin of a drug-smuggling operation was charged with drug trafficking offenses even though that drug operation was incorporated in another country?
Then how come the DeCSS thing is such a problem? Perhaps because the DMCA does in fact protect against circumventing protective measures on Copyrighted materials?
Notwithstanding the provisions of subsection (a)(1)(A), a person who has lawfully obtained the right to use a copy of a computer program may circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a particular portion of that program for the sole purpose of identifying and analyzing those elements of the program that are necessary to achieve interoperability of an independently created computer program with other programs, and that have not previously been readily available to the person engaging in the circumvention, to the extent any such acts of identification and analysis do not constitute infringement under this title.
Again, circumvention of a protective mechanism is prohibited under the governing of the DMCA. So copying a DVD or copy protected music CD is illegal. Even for purposes of backups. Because the CSS is considered a reasonable attempt of securing the Copyrighted material.
I guess I was wrong that backups were specifically exempted. I couldn't find it. But copying for the purpose of backups it perfectly legal, because it does not involve decryption. It is also likely to fall under fair use.
Specifically exempt from the DMCA if there is an approval from the Copyright holder and/or if the subject is in the Public Domain and/or if the subject isn't reasonably protected.
No permission is necessary. Only the requirement to make "a good faith effort to obtain authorization before the circumvention"
But since poor mechanisms of protection are accepted in Court, I don't blame the scientists of being afraid.
Afraid of what? An injunction? Circumvention does not fall under criminal law.
The DMCA has been applied in all of the above cases, in terms of supressive measures to maintain information/studies captive or openly challenged in Court. I think your literal interpretation of the DMCA shows exactly how easy and how dangerous it is to get the wrong idea about something so evil.
Show me these cases. All I see is Dmitry, who was trying to capitalize off of circumventing copyright, and DeCSS, which was hit with an injunction which forced them to stop distribution. I see nothing inherently evil with the DMCA, it just seems like a way to enforce the evil that is copyright law.
The DMCA can be used to prevent material from entering the public domain. If it is illegal to create a tool that can circumvent encryption or copy protection then how can that work ever become avaliable to the public.
FUD. All it takes is one single person (possibly working outside the U.S.) to decrypt the work and then distribute it. If necessary that can even be done legally (either working outside the U.S. or by creating a tool specifically to decrypt public domain works), but that's not even necessary, because as long as the decryption is done, anonymously, further distribution and use is perfectly legal. Your great^4-grandchildren will have no problems seeing Fight Club, just save that copy of DeCSS you have lying around for the day when it becomes legal to decrypt it.
The DMCA outlaws methods of circumventing copy protection.
"that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title"
Copyright violation is illegal and should (and will) remain so.
I disagree.
However, the DMCA bans information solely on the basis that it can potentially be used to facilitate the violation of copyright, even if it has potential for perfectly legal use.
Only if those potential uses are sham uses, and the work is primarily created or marketed for copyright circumvention. There are many many software products which have the potential to be used for copyright circumvention, and almost every one is not at all affected by the DMCA.
The arrest of Dmitry Sklyarov is unjust because the tool he created has perfectly legal uses.
And if those uses were a significant reason that the product was marketed in the U.S., then he will be found not guilty.
Prosecuting people over DeCSS is unjust, because DeCSS has perfectly legal uses.
Oh please. DeCSS was created to circumvent copyright. It was marketed to circumvent copyright. Those legitimate uses are merely incidental. This is not only the ruling the courts made, it is the truth.
The DMCA is a misguided and dangerous law that needs to be fought until it is corrected.
The DMCA merely helps enforce a misguided and dangerous law that was already on the books - copyright law.
Re:cry me a river you CRIMINAL
on
DMCA 2, Freedom 0
·
· Score: 3, Informative
Funny, I've talked to a lot of people who are far from geeks, much less "pirates". I've told them about the attempt to place unexpirable "access controls" on material slated to be public domain.
The DMCA only covers copyrighted material, not material which is in the public domain.
I've told them about the arrest of a foreign national for writing a program legal in his country.
You mean for importing a program into this country and distributing it in this country.
I've told them about the intimidation and outright threatening of scientists who dare to expose flaws in a sham security system.
Completely irrelevant to the DMCA.
I've told them about being blocked from watching a movie they've bought wherever they want on whatever machine they choose.
Somewhat valid point.
I've told them about losing their time-honored rights to Fair Use, to First Sale, to archival copies...
Something which is specifically protected in the DMCA.
You know what? They don't think any of those things should be occuring. They don't think that reverse engineering for system interoperability should be illegal.
Also specifically protected by the DMCA.
They don't think allowing backups should be illegal.
Which it isn't.
They don't think allowing you to read an eBook on whatever machine you choose, should be illegal.
Somewhat fair point.
They don't think control over your own movie collection should be illegal.
Huh?
They don't think that quotation from a digital source, for the purposes of scholarship, should be illegal.
Specifically exempted from the DMCA.
They don't think that scientific research should be illegal.
Specifically exempted from the DMCA. You should read it some time.
What could make a judge so hostile to clearly valid academic concerns?
How about the fact that he was asking for a declaratory judgement on an issue that the other parties had agreed not to prosecute? Sounds like a huge waste of the courts time to me.
Re:What the hell is wrong with the Judiciary
on
DMCA 2, Freedom 0
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· Score: 2
This is a goddam professor we are talking about. Speech and professor goes together like bribery and politician. If a professor stands up as says "hey, i'm not able to do my job" what the hell kind of idiot judge says "whatever".
Please. Someone told a professor that what he was doing might not be legal. Nothing more. There is no case. It was a stupid case to begin with.
The GPL is a license that if you accept grants you the right to copy and distribute the software as long as you follow its terms. This means including the source, changes, and the license. If you disagree with the gpl then normal copyright rules apply.
That is exactly the same as any other EULA. It grants you certain rights as long as your follow its terms. If you disagree with an EULA then normal copyright rules apply.
The GPL is not a eula, eula's take rights away, the gpl grants you rights you don't oridnarily have.
The GPL, like any other EULA, can only take rights away if you accept it. If you accept the GPL, you get the right to do certain things, but your right to first sale is taken away.
Other EULAs may or may not take more away than the GPL, but the GPL does attempt to take away one's right to first sale.
In short, the GPL only gives new rights, while Microsoft's EULAs are primarily concerned with taking them away.
The GPL does not only give new rights, it also attempts to take away your right to first sale. Consider clause 4, "You may not copy, modify, sublicense, or distribute the Program except as expressly provided under this License."
This is precisely the same legal situation as the Microsoft EULA. If you don't accept it, your fallback is standard copyright law, which only gives you the right to make a single copy "as an essential step in the utilization of the computer program in
conjunction with a machine", and another single copy for backup purposes.
but if you make changes to source, I think that cause you are using the source code you have to abide by the licence of the source.
But what if you get someone else to change the source? Or what if you create a patch to the source, someone else applies the patch, makes a binary, burns the CD, and sells it to you?
Slashdot Mirror
OK, but the point of my post is still valid. Even after copyright expires, the law must be broken in order for one to get the tools that allow you to circumvent access controls, even though you do have the legal right to what's on the other side of the access controls.
Maybe, and maybe not. It is unclear as to whether every single instance of circumvention software changing hands is considered trafficking. Even if that changing of hands is considered trafficking, no one is injured, so no one is able to initiate a civil suit, and criminal suits are also not valid, because the "trafficking" is not done for the purposes of commercial advantage or private financial gain.
If that doesn't ease your fears, maybe this does. I have a copy of DeCSS. I don't remember where I obtained it from. If any public domain work is encrypted using CSS, send it to me. I will decrypt it for you and send it back. I'm sure there are others who will do the same.
The DMCA cases really sound like the lawmakers are trying to reclassify fair use rights as fair use privilages, privilages that we can't complain about losing when they're taken away.
Fair use simply means that you can't be prosecuted for copyright infringement for certain uses of a copyrighted work. It doesn't mean that you can't be prosecuted under the interstate commerce clause, and it most certainly doesn't mean that the copyright holder of a work is required to help you perform that fair use. In fact, it is the right of the copyright holder to prevent fair use through technological means.
Maybe it is possible that, with the advent of widespread digital communications, copyright law really is obsolete and the DMCA is just a flailing, panicked attempt to prop it up for a bit longer.
That is my own personal belief.
I just wish all this junk would go away so I can spend my time thinking about more interesting problems.
I'm not sure exactly why you need to spend your time thinking about the DMCA. If you're not a copyright infringer... Let me restate that, since I don't know anyone who's never infringed on copyright (basically anyone who's used winzip or the old netscape). If you're not a major copyright infringer, or willfully helping others to infringe copyright, you don't have anything to worry about from the DMCA. The point of the DMCA is to get the Dmitry's of the world, who make a living helping others break the law, because we are a nation of lawbreakers, so it's impossible to go after everyone.
Hell, the primary purpose of Dr. Felten's work is to merely prove that SDMI is a flawed approach to preventing copyright. Yet RIAA is (apparently) going to succeed at using the DMCA to prevent him from presenting that work.
This is not the case. Felton already presented the work. The RIAA has agreed not to prosecute him. Felton then sued the RIAA to get a declaratory judgement. The court denied to rule on that declaratory judgement, presumably because he had no standing and the case was moot (though I haven't been able to read the ruling).
I suspect, however, that there are a great deal many more people using DeCSS for purely legitimate purposes than for copyright infringement.
By the wording of the law, use is irrelevant if the product is created or marketed to circumvent copyright. This case would be a lot different if the RIAA sued someone for making a linux DVD player which did not allow access to the unencrypted MPEG.
If I might ask, what do you believe should exist in place of copyright law?
Absolutely nothing. Contract law could be used in some cases, but that would mainly be for B2B dealings.
Do you believe that all intellectual property should belong to the public domain?
Pretty much, although there wouldn't really be a term "public domain" any more, for obvious reasons.
I agree that copyright law has major problems (especially after the Sonny Bono Copyright Extension), but I am not sure that legal protection of ownership of intellectual property is a bad thing.
IMHO, authors of creative works would actually be better compensated, because the true intellectual property will always be something that is part of them, something that no one else can take away. As a software programmer, I can certainly say without a doubt that a good programmer is irreplacible for maintaining or improving his work. Even with the best documented and cleanest written software in the world, the original author(s) will always have an advantage over others. I suspect that the same is true of writers and performers, and as such I suspect that copyright law is unnecessary to provide incentive to almost all of those authors. Good authors of any type of work create because it's what they love, or what they do best. As long as they are going to make a decent living off those creations, they will continue to create. Good creators might make $50K a year instead of $500K a year, but I don't think this is going to act as a deterrent because those who are good at something tend to not do it just because of the possibility of huge salaries.
Maybe I'm wrong, and in any case, I doubt I'll see the end of copyright law during my lifetime.
However, it's illegal to posess the tools needed to circumvent the access controls on a work, even after the copyright expires.
BZZT. Sorry, possession is not illegal under the DMCA, nor could it ever be, since possession of a decryption tool without intent to distribute does not fall under any of the provisions of Article I, Section 8 of the Constution (which would likely be the copyright clause or the interstate commerce clause). A law against possession of decryption tools would be unconstitutional under the 10th ammendment.
The E2 node on it says "Essentially propaganda used by certain groups, companies, nations and/or people in order to invoke F.ear, U.ncertainty, and D.oubt about something." I find that perfectly applicable to what you are doing (spreading unjustified fear) when you try to say that the DMCA will affect the free dissemination of public domain works.
It only takes one person to decrypt the work. After that it can be freely distributed without anyone having to do any further decryption. I have my copy of DeCSS (and no, possession is not illegal), so if no one else will do it, I will offer to decrypt any public domain work protected by CSS for you. Besides, distributing DeCSS to someone for the sole purpose of decrypting public domain works would not be a criminal act, and since no one would be injured, no one would have grounds for a civil suit either. Even in the highly unlikely case that you got caught, someone had some ridiculous grounds for saying they were injured, and you lost the case (all three of which are extremely unlikely), you would have to pay a maximum of $2500 in statutory damages. BFD.
Neither the government nor any corporation is going to waste its time chasing around people doing this. And that's why your statement is FUD.
BTW, nice nested blockquote method, I've decided to "steal" it (I wonder if it works on most browsers) :).
So apparently it's not a weight of usage argument after all. DMCA bans things like DeCSS on the mere potential of their misuse. It's like banning hammers because they could be used to kill someone.
You're a moron.
Feel free to reply, but I'm done talking to you about it. RTFDMCA.
I think he spent the night in jail from what I remember (he posted here after). However, the point is that you said I was being paranoid about people being arrested for violating the DMCA if they write DeCSS tools. This clearly shows I am not. It has happened and will continue to do so.
Again, I don't think he was arrested for violating the DMCA. I'll check the slashdot archives to see if I can confirm this.
And when I referred to you being paranoid, I meant about the DMCA restricting fair use, or even doing anything to stop the distribution of circumvention tools. Yes, some people will go to jail, but it is likely to be only those who attempt to profit off the creation of those circumvention tools, like Dmitry.
But even on the amazingly far off chance you are right about criminal charges, he still would have been sued for every dime he's ever going to make by the MPAA (see various DeCSS lawsuits going on now, including 2600).
2600 is a corporation trying to make a profit off the distribution of DeCSS. I have very little sympathy for them. As for the creator of the product being sued into bankruptcy, it is sad, but it's not all that bad. Just ask OJ Simpson.
Also, there is a very big jurisdictional question as to whether the federal government has the right to enforce a law against the act of an individual creating a product which does not in and of itself infringe copyright if that individual does not engage in the commerce of that product. I would suspect that such a prosecution would be deemed unconstitutional under the 10th ammendment.
The bottom line is that the DMCA is a way for media corporations to make money off of their creations forever, in every format ever devised, with indefinate copyright and absolutely no fair use whatsoever.
I always thought that was the Sonny Bono Copyright extention act that did that. Seriously, the DMCA is nothing more than a very slightly more effective way to enforce the copyright laws which are already on the books. The main reason people are getting so up in arms about it is that they are so used to breaking copyright laws in their daily life.
I oppose the DMCA on the same grounds that I oppose copyright law, but I feel that it is going to have very little effect on the mass majority of the public, so I dislike the high levels of attention it has been getting from people claiming that its effect is much worse than it actually is. I support fighting against the DMCA and copyright law through the creation of copylefted (by my definition, not RMS's) software which can easily nullify their effect if only 10% of the particular industry used it. I support fighting the constitutionality of the DMCA where appropriate (sadly, it seem seems to be well contructed enough to make that approach somewhat useless), and modifications of the constitution in order to protect against it and other laws like it.
Oh, yeah, you are right.. NOT! Ask Johanssen about whether or not he went to jail for writing DeCSS. He sure as $hit did!! They took all his PCs too. And he was in FINLAND (or some Scandavian country)!!!
I searched on google and the only information that I can find on his arrest says that the charges were contributory copyright infringement, not violation of the DMCA. I also can't find any evidence that he spent a single day in jail. You may be right on this one, but if so I find it hard to believe that the Dmitry case is getting so much more publicity, considering that Johanssen was not trying to profit off DeCSS.
Imagine if he'd been HERE. He'd have been bent over some sink and raped with a baton by some fascist police ba$tard like that Hatian immigrant.
I suspect that if he were here no criminal charges would have been filed.
If you are a regular Joe, then you are screwed, because the uberhackers will go to jail or be sued into the poorhouse if they give you a tool to exercise your fair use rights.
Consider DeCSS. Neither has happened. You're being paranoid.
I [sic] doesn't say anywhere that you can not sell it. It just forbids copy, distribuition [sic] sublicencing and modification.
How can you sell something without distributing it?
Like an ebook of Alice in Wonderland which is out of copyright.
Is it legal to circumvent the access controls on this since it's out of copyright?
Yes.
This is true, but the DMCA places hurdles on Copyrighted material ever being forced to become Public Domain.
Read my other posts, this is complete FUD.
Not to re-hash an old debacle, but he is an employee of a company that did this. He didn't personally traffic this for his own demise.
He is charged with both personally trafficking it and being part of a conspiracy to traffick it. He may or may not be guilty of that, but that's what he is charged with.
He may be guilty of being an employee of this company which carried this traffic to our borders, but shouldn't it strike you as strange if Bill Gates was personally indicted for enacting a monopoly?
Would it strike you strange if the kingpin of a drug-smuggling operation was charged with drug trafficking offenses even though that drug operation was incorporated in another country?
Then how come the DeCSS thing is such a problem? Perhaps because the DMCA does in fact protect against circumventing protective measures on Copyrighted materials?
Again, circumvention of a protective mechanism is prohibited under the governing of the DMCA. So copying a DVD or copy protected music CD is illegal. Even for purposes of backups. Because the CSS is considered a reasonable attempt of securing the Copyrighted material.
I guess I was wrong that backups were specifically exempted. I couldn't find it. But copying for the purpose of backups it perfectly legal, because it does not involve decryption. It is also likely to fall under fair use.
Specifically exempt from the DMCA if there is an approval from the Copyright holder and/or if the subject is in the Public Domain and/or if the subject isn't reasonably protected.
No permission is necessary. Only the requirement to make "a good faith effort to obtain authorization before the circumvention"
But since poor mechanisms of protection are accepted in Court, I don't blame the scientists of being afraid.
Afraid of what? An injunction? Circumvention does not fall under criminal law.
The DMCA has been applied in all of the above cases, in terms of supressive measures to maintain information/studies captive or openly challenged in Court. I think your literal interpretation of the DMCA shows exactly how easy and how dangerous it is to get the wrong idea about something so evil.
Show me these cases. All I see is Dmitry, who was trying to capitalize off of circumventing copyright, and DeCSS, which was hit with an injunction which forced them to stop distribution. I see nothing inherently evil with the DMCA, it just seems like a way to enforce the evil that is copyright law.
The DMCA can be used to prevent material from entering the public domain. If it is illegal to create a tool that can circumvent encryption or copy protection then how can that work ever become avaliable to the public.
FUD. All it takes is one single person (possibly working outside the U.S.) to decrypt the work and then distribute it. If necessary that can even be done legally (either working outside the U.S. or by creating a tool specifically to decrypt public domain works), but that's not even necessary, because as long as the decryption is done, anonymously, further distribution and use is perfectly legal. Your great^4-grandchildren will have no problems seeing Fight Club, just save that copy of DeCSS you have lying around for the day when it becomes legal to decrypt it.
No, but if I am in possession of the software that is able to make those backups I can be arrested.
Wrong again. Possession is not illegal. RTFDMCA.
It doesn't matter whether DeCSS is used to access copyrighted or non-copyrighted works, the "device" itself is still illegal.
If the device is not primarily made or marketed to access copyrighted works, it is not illegal.
The judge in the 2600 case said that this issue wasn't yet "ripe" because nobody's tried to prevent access to non-copyrighted works yet.
And likely never will be.
The DMCA outlaws methods of circumventing copy protection.
"that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title"
Copyright violation is illegal and should (and will) remain so.
I disagree.
However, the DMCA bans information solely on the basis that it can potentially be used to facilitate the violation of copyright, even if it has potential for perfectly legal use.
Only if those potential uses are sham uses, and the work is primarily created or marketed for copyright circumvention. There are many many software products which have the potential to be used for copyright circumvention, and almost every one is not at all affected by the DMCA.
The arrest of Dmitry Sklyarov is unjust because the tool he created has perfectly legal uses.
And if those uses were a significant reason that the product was marketed in the U.S., then he will be found not guilty.
Prosecuting people over DeCSS is unjust, because DeCSS has perfectly legal uses.
Oh please. DeCSS was created to circumvent copyright. It was marketed to circumvent copyright. Those legitimate uses are merely incidental. This is not only the ruling the courts made, it is the truth.
The DMCA is a misguided and dangerous law that needs to be fought until it is corrected.
The DMCA merely helps enforce a misguided and dangerous law that was already on the books - copyright law.
Funny, I've talked to a lot of people who are far from geeks, much less "pirates". I've told them about the attempt to place unexpirable "access controls" on material slated to be public domain.
The DMCA only covers copyrighted material, not material which is in the public domain.
I've told them about the arrest of a foreign national for writing a program legal in his country.
You mean for importing a program into this country and distributing it in this country.
I've told them about the intimidation and outright threatening of scientists who dare to expose flaws in a sham security system.
Completely irrelevant to the DMCA.
I've told them about being blocked from watching a movie they've bought wherever they want on whatever machine they choose.
Somewhat valid point.
I've told them about losing their time-honored rights to Fair Use, to First Sale, to archival copies...
Something which is specifically protected in the DMCA.
You know what? They don't think any of those things should be occuring. They don't think that reverse engineering for system interoperability should be illegal.
Also specifically protected by the DMCA.
They don't think allowing backups should be illegal.
Which it isn't.
They don't think allowing you to read an eBook on whatever machine you choose, should be illegal.
Somewhat fair point.
They don't think control over your own movie collection should be illegal.
Huh?
They don't think that quotation from a digital source, for the purposes of scholarship, should be illegal.
Specifically exempted from the DMCA.
They don't think that scientific research should be illegal.
Specifically exempted from the DMCA. You should read it some time.
What could make a judge so hostile to clearly valid academic concerns?
How about the fact that he was asking for a declaratory judgement on an issue that the other parties had agreed not to prosecute? Sounds like a huge waste of the courts time to me.
This is a goddam professor we are talking about. Speech and professor goes together like bribery and politician. If a professor stands up as says "hey, i'm not able to do my job" what the hell kind of idiot judge says "whatever".
Please. Someone told a professor that what he was doing might not be legal. Nothing more. There is no case. It was a stupid case to begin with.
That judge must have been fucking high when he made that decision. I bet he rolled up a nice big spliff and toked away on it.
The GPL is a license that if you accept grants you the right to copy and distribute the software as long as you follow its terms. This means including the source, changes, and the license. If you disagree with the gpl then normal copyright rules apply.
That is exactly the same as any other EULA. It grants you certain rights as long as your follow its terms. If you disagree with an EULA then normal copyright rules apply.
The GPL is not a eula, eula's take rights away, the gpl grants you rights you don't oridnarily have.
The GPL, like any other EULA, can only take rights away if you accept it. If you accept the GPL, you get the right to do certain things, but your right to first sale is taken away.
Other EULAs may or may not take more away than the GPL, but the GPL does attempt to take away one's right to first sale.
In short, the GPL only gives new rights, while Microsoft's EULAs are primarily concerned with taking them away.
The GPL does not only give new rights, it also attempts to take away your right to first sale. Consider clause 4, "You may not copy, modify, sublicense, or distribute the Program except as expressly provided under this License."
This is precisely the same legal situation as the Microsoft EULA. If you don't accept it, your fallback is standard copyright law, which only gives you the right to make a single copy "as an essential step in the utilization of the computer program in conjunction with a machine", and another single copy for backup purposes.
And popular languages like C and C++ are really awful from a security standpoint.
I wonder what language they wrote the JVM in...
Especially since for many unscrupulous businesses, ratings in search engines directly translate to dollars.
But we've all seen first hand how easy it is to stop unscrupulousness through meta-moderation!
but if you make changes to source, I think that cause you are using the source code you have to abide by the licence of the source.
But what if you get someone else to change the source? Or what if you create a patch to the source, someone else applies the patch, makes a binary, burns the CD, and sells it to you?