The architecture was pretty exciting, and they were even capable of running IRIX as an opt-out...
I think you're thinking of the O2. The O2 was SGI's lowest-end MIPS workstation. It was always available for under $10,000 in the base configuration, and I think the lowest-end models dipped down toward $5,000.
But the NT boxes were completely different. They had Intel processors in them, and could not run IRIX. But they had a really proprietary architecture, which meant they could only run a special built of NT 4.0. That basically put SGI in the service pack business, which was a major distraction for them. Their next-generation NT workstations were designed to run out-of-the-box Windows, and they worked very well. No better than anybody else's, of course, and for considerably more money. But I had one under my desk for about two years, and I never had a complaint about it.
I remember SGI was trying to get into the big internet server market.
In those days, and somewhat before, SGI already had a big chunk of the Internet server market. Not for small sites, or for providers who host small sites, but for giant sites like Travelocity. As far as I know, Travelocity still runs on IRIX.
The NT thing was an attempt to get into the broader desktop workstation market. SGI saw which way the wind was blowing, but they reacted the wrong way. They sold complete PCs-- clunky, overpriced, and incompatible. That business model completely failed for SGI, just as it failed for Intergraph a couple of years later. (And it then failed for SGI again when they bought Intergraph's workstation business. What goes around comes around, I guess.)
It's a shame that SGI couldn't have figured out a way to put Infinite Reality on a PCI card-- and sell it for $5,000-- in 1997. They might have owned the professional workstation graphics market, and maybe even the low-end gamer market, by now. Instead, though, they got the idea in their heads that system bandwidth was more important on a PC than interactive graphics performance. Which just turned out not to be true.
Ironically, SGI now has the ability to put Infinite Reality-class graphics on a PCI card. The Fuel uses V12 graphics (which are comparable to IR in a lot of ways) on a modified PCI bus. Unfortunately, the world has moved on, and it's too late.
So... taking a profit on a transaction equals "fucking the customer over?" 'Cause, you know, I'm just trying to add new entries into my English-dh003i, dh003i-English dictionary over here.
This is a common misconception. If most end users were cheap, they'd build their own computers from parts instead of buying a Gateway or a Dell or a what-have-you.
Most end users are impatient and lazy. (Not in the derogative sense; I, too, am impatient and lazy, and chances are you are too.) They run Windows or Mac OS for the same reason that they buy their computers pre-assembled: because they can get up and running faster and with less work.
Linux is not easy to use (making it unappealing to the lazy), and what's worse it's not easy to learn (making it unappealing to the impatient). Giant changes would have to happen before Linux could become any of those things. The people who work on Linux have no motivation to make those giant changes. So I don't see it happening.
I think there's one scenario in which Linux could become a viable desktop alternative. A large and profitable company could adopt Linux, base a business plan on it, and make the necessary changes to make it easy to use and easy to learn. The company would have to be large and profitable because Linux would require a great deal of work to get where it needs to be, and the company would have to be able to survive spending a fortune on Linux for a few years while they do what they need to do.
There's one big thing, I think, that will prevent this from happening: the GPL. Any company that does any proprietary work on Linux will be forced to give its source code away to anybody who asks for it, making it impossible for that company to have a competitive edge in the marketplace. That takes the wind out of the old business plan.
Of course, Apple already did exactly this. They just based their OS on FreeBSD instead of Linux. So the idea is sound; it's just that in GPL-land, there's no possibility of commercial motivation, which means no reason to invest the necessary time and work.
Server operating systems, naturally, don't have to be easy to use or to learn at all. That's why companies like IBM and SGI are shipping big servers that are built from the ground up to run Linux: they only have to make a few changes to the OS to get it to do what their customers need, and their competitive advantage is the hardware, so releasing the source code of their OS is no big deal to them.
Dude, if you don't work for emusic, you're going to have to present some kind of credentials or something. This is the biggest-- and lamest-- sales pitch I've seen in a Slashdot comment in a long, long time.
After you pay for it, you are entitled to view that copy.
Within two sets of constraints. First, within the constraints established by the contract, if any, between the you and the licensor. If that contract says you can only view the content on Tuesdays, then viewing it on Wednesday is a breach of contract.
The other constraint is defined by the law.
The idea that you can-- or even should be able to-- do whatever the heck you want with a copy of a copyrighted work is bogus. Until the work goes into the public domain, the copyright holder gets to determine who gets to do what. The only exceptions are those enumerated in Title 17.
Oooh, so Mother Nature needs a favor?! Well maybe she should have thought of that when she was besetting us with droughts and floods and poison monkeys! Nature started the fight for survival, and now she wants to quit because she's losing. Well I say, "Hard cheese."
How is it not? It is illegal to make, import, or distribute a device the sole purpose of which is to circumvent copy protection in order to facilitate copyright infringement. Set aside for a moment the fact that you may or may not disagree with this law; what part of it is unreasonable?
If a contract is unenforceable, there is no legal recourse for a party to take when the other party violates the contract, so if it's legal but unenforceable, it makes little difference.
Okay, we're running up against the word "enforceable" here. First, you said, "if the law considers it unenforceable, then it won't be enforced." That's not right. A contract doesn't have to be enforceable in order to be valid.
Contracts are sometimes referred to as unenforceable, though, but for a different reason. An unenforceable contract is one that, while totally valid, cannot be acted upon by the court. For example, if we signed a contract in 1934 in which you agreed to give me a plate of corn muffins in exchange for painting your fence, and I thought the corn muffins were lousy and refused to paint your fence, and you sued me today for it, the court couldn't award you anything even though you're in the right, because of the statute of limitations. That contract is unenforceable; that is, the court is literally unable to do anything to enforce the contract.
So it's not at all accurate to say that if the court deems a contract unenforceable they won't enforce it. The court will enforce all valid contracts unless they are unable to do so because of some jurisdictional or similar issue.
The DMCA not only makes things that were previously _protected_ by law(fair use, etc.) illegal in many circumstances
Circumvention of access control has never been protected by law. The law had nothing at all to say on the subject until the DMCA came along.
but also does so in total contradiction to other laws.
Which laws? If you're thinking of 107 again, please try to remember that fair use is merely noninfringing. The law does not say that fair use must be allowed technologically and contractually. The DMCA is not in contradiction to any other laws.
If that's not unique, the DMCA makes it possible to be criminally charged, including possible arrest and jail time, for using your own property in a manner you see fit
This is not significant. Most criminal laws make it possible for you to be arrested and jailed for using your property in a manner you see fit. For example, if I throw a brick (my property) at someone else's head (a manner I see fit), I can be arrested, charged, and jailed. The fact that the DMCA makes what was previously not illegal illegal is not a meaningful argument against it.
Also, I would like to point out that it is the DMCA that is forcefully restricting freedoms of the people who are against it, not the other way around.
Uh... huh? Yes, laws exist to restrict freedoms with the threat of force. I really don't understand your point here.
How is the ROT-13 decode table any different from the ASCII decode table?
The purpose of ROT-13 encoding is to obscure content; it is commonly used for such. The purpose of ASCII encoding is not to obscure content; it has never been used for such. The different is as clear as day.
By your argument, a file that has been encoded in ASCII, EBCDIC, or UniCode is also effectively protected.
No. There's a difference between representing letters as numbers in a straightforward transform for technical reasons-- that is, "encoding" in this sense-- and deliberately obscuring the content in order to prevent access-- that is, "encoding" in the cryptographic sense.
The question becomes, what is the purpose of the encoding? If the purpose is to obscure the content to prevent access, then the encoding is an access control mechanism. If the process of encoding makes the content inaccessible until it is decoded, then the encoding is a effective access control mechanism.
The actual parallel is, could Universal then go after Sony for altering their machines so they could record programs as before? I'd say not, since the right to record is established.
I don't like repeating myself, but you really need to understand this: there is no right to record. If you record, it is noninfringing. But you are not legally entitled to record. If Universal releases content that you cannot record, that's just tough luck for you.
Putting up a legal framework to make it illegal to circumvent even trivial copy protection is just plain wrong-headed.
That's not the question. The question is, is it constitutional? The answer is probably yes, but only the Supreme Court can say for certain.
There are lots of laws, and for every one, there is some group of people, small or large, who thinks they are wrong-headed. This does not make those laws unconstitutional.
Does the DMCA make the tools themselves illegal, or just using them to make illegal copies?
The importation and distribution of the tools is illegal. Possession is, as far as I know, not.
This one could be good since it has been demonstrated that this software isn't being used widely to pirate
No such thing has been demonstrated. What was demonstrated was that no copies of works pirated with this tool were found on Kazaa and similar networks. That's evidence; not proof.
Thanks to HR5710, any law enforcement, local, state, or federal, may come into your home and search without first obtaining a warrant.
That's a bald-faced lie, and you should be ashamed of yourself. Read the bill. It says that agents of the department may execute warrants-- just as they always have-- and that agents of the department may make arrests without warrant under exigent circumstances-- just as they always have.
In other words, if an agent of the agency witnesses you planting a bomb, he can arrest you on the spot without a warrant. The same is true of any police officer in the country; hell, the same is true of any citizen in the country. If you are in active commission of a felony, anybody can detain you until the authorities arrive and take you into custody. These things have always been true before, and are nothing new.
I don't read SOLE purpose, I read "primarily designed".
Read further. The statute actually says that it prohibits devices that are primarily designed for circumvention and that have no significant application other than circumvention. The "sole purpose" thing is a simplification, but an accurate one.
The other main problem is that The infringement should -arguably- be punished, which already was the case before DMCA, and not the tools for infringement.
First of all, that would have been a relevant argument in the legislature, but it's not in the judiciary. If the law is valid, "should have" doesn't mean anything.
But beyond that, there's plenty of precedent for banning tools that exist solely to commit crimes. Lock-picking tools, for example, cannot be bought without a license. This statute extends the exact same concept to tools whose purpose is to "pick" the "locks" on copyrighted works.
All you need to do is print out half the alphabet on one line, then, on the next line, print out the other half, directly underneath the first half. Bingo: You have a conversion table.
Yes. And that conversion table is then used to decode ROT-13-encoded content. The act of decoding, and the fact that reading is not possible without first decoding, means that the access to the content is effectively controlled with ROT-13.
As I've said time and again, the question of whether ROT-13 is a good access control mechanism is not relevant. The only relevant question is whether ROT-13 controls access at all, and it clearly does.
Would you care to defend the legitimacy of the flag that disables text-to-speech feature, and explain why it should trump the fair use rights of the blind consumer?
Fair use is not a right; there is no legal mandate on the part of publishers to ensure that their works can be used in every possible noninfringing way. A publisher can publish a work that cannot, for technical or contractual reasons, be used in a way that would technically be noninfringing.
All the law says is that fair use does not infringe. It doesn't say, or even imply, that preventing fair use is against the law.
Making a personal copy of a videotape for backup purposes would probably be considered fair use. But the Macrovision scheme prevents you from doing it. Does that mean Macrovision is illegal? Absolutely not.
The country being free also has nothing to do with it
Of course it does. You and I are free to enter into any legally valid contract. Whether a contract is enforceable or not has no legal bearing, nor is the question of whether the contract is reasonable, or fair, or just. All that matters is whether the contract is valid.
In that a copyright holder can go around accusing people of DMCA violations
Anybody can accuse anybody else of anything. Anybody can sue anybody else for anything. I can sue you for breach of contract right now, if I see fit. My case will have no merit and I'll probably end up paying your court costs and fees, but I can sue you. This condition is not unique to copyright law.
Another problem is that persons can be charged criminally and face jail time for simple violations of things that have always been legal and considered fair before, eg. this very case.
Woop-de-do. Every new law makes things that were previously legal illegal. That's not unique to copyright law, either.
Sony v. Universal is a completely different issue. Sony made devices. Universal said the only purpose of those devices was the illegal reproduction of copyrighted material, so those devices should not be reproduced. The appellate court said that the devices could be used for noninfringing purposes, so they in and of themselves are not illegal.
Consider instead a hypothetical that is closer to the real issue, and not too far from the truth. Say Universal started broadcasting shows that could not be recorded on Sony decks. Could Sony sue Universal? Of course not. It has been upheld that certain noncommercial, in-home uses of a work are noninfringing. That doesn't mean that content producers are legally required to submit to those uses. They are free to use whatever means they like to prevent that sort of use.
So, no this isn't an exception to the copyright holders' rights, it's rights retained by the people.
Don't be so quick to throw around the word "right." Fair use is not now, and has never been, a right. The law grants a monopoly limited in time but unlimited in scope to copyright holders, and then delineates very specific exceptions to that monopoly.
Let's say there are 20 people in the world who can read ROT-13 encoded text without decoding it. To the rest of the world, ROT-13 is an effective access control mechanism.
But then, they've never been able to prevent it in the past.
Sure they have. In the past 30 years, technological means have been available. Before that, contractual means were available. Copyright holders are absolutely able to prevent fair use of their works. The law merely says that making fair use is noninfringing. It doesn't say anything about it being mandatory.
I would argue that copyright fundementally requires that fair uses and public domain uses must be made of works.
Well, two things. First, you can argue it all you want, but that's not what the law says. Second, copyright is temporary, so all works will pass into the public domain eventually, at which time anybody can do anything they want.
The intendet result would be that it is impossible (or just very hard) to copy the file.
What? No. We're not talking about copy protection. (I think I may have used the phrase copy protection in one or another of my posts in this thread; if I did, that was my mistake.) We're talking about access control. The intended result is to make it impossible to access the content of the work. ROT-13 makes it impossible to access the content of a work-- you can't read it-- until you run it through ROT-13 again. ROT-13 is, therefore, an effective access control device. You have do do something to the content to get around it, even though that something is trivial.
Slashdot Mirror
I think Star Trek movies work kind of like the 13th floor of a building. With no particular fuss, the numbering goes 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7...
The architecture was pretty exciting, and they were even capable of running IRIX as an opt-out...
I think you're thinking of the O2. The O2 was SGI's lowest-end MIPS workstation. It was always available for under $10,000 in the base configuration, and I think the lowest-end models dipped down toward $5,000.
But the NT boxes were completely different. They had Intel processors in them, and could not run IRIX. But they had a really proprietary architecture, which meant they could only run a special built of NT 4.0. That basically put SGI in the service pack business, which was a major distraction for them. Their next-generation NT workstations were designed to run out-of-the-box Windows, and they worked very well. No better than anybody else's, of course, and for considerably more money. But I had one under my desk for about two years, and I never had a complaint about it.
I remember SGI was trying to get into the big internet server market.
In those days, and somewhat before, SGI already had a big chunk of the Internet server market. Not for small sites, or for providers who host small sites, but for giant sites like Travelocity. As far as I know, Travelocity still runs on IRIX.
The NT thing was an attempt to get into the broader desktop workstation market. SGI saw which way the wind was blowing, but they reacted the wrong way. They sold complete PCs-- clunky, overpriced, and incompatible. That business model completely failed for SGI, just as it failed for Intergraph a couple of years later. (And it then failed for SGI again when they bought Intergraph's workstation business. What goes around comes around, I guess.)
It's a shame that SGI couldn't have figured out a way to put Infinite Reality on a PCI card-- and sell it for $5,000-- in 1997. They might have owned the professional workstation graphics market, and maybe even the low-end gamer market, by now. Instead, though, they got the idea in their heads that system bandwidth was more important on a PC than interactive graphics performance. Which just turned out not to be true.
Ironically, SGI now has the ability to put Infinite Reality-class graphics on a PCI card. The Fuel uses V12 graphics (which are comparable to IR in a lot of ways) on a modified PCI bus. Unfortunately, the world has moved on, and it's too late.
So... taking a profit on a transaction equals "fucking the customer over?" 'Cause, you know, I'm just trying to add new entries into my English-dh003i, dh003i-English dictionary over here.
Because most end users are cheap.
This is a common misconception. If most end users were cheap, they'd build their own computers from parts instead of buying a Gateway or a Dell or a what-have-you.
Most end users are impatient and lazy. (Not in the derogative sense; I, too, am impatient and lazy, and chances are you are too.) They run Windows or Mac OS for the same reason that they buy their computers pre-assembled: because they can get up and running faster and with less work.
Linux is not easy to use (making it unappealing to the lazy), and what's worse it's not easy to learn (making it unappealing to the impatient). Giant changes would have to happen before Linux could become any of those things. The people who work on Linux have no motivation to make those giant changes. So I don't see it happening.
I think there's one scenario in which Linux could become a viable desktop alternative. A large and profitable company could adopt Linux, base a business plan on it, and make the necessary changes to make it easy to use and easy to learn. The company would have to be large and profitable because Linux would require a great deal of work to get where it needs to be, and the company would have to be able to survive spending a fortune on Linux for a few years while they do what they need to do.
There's one big thing, I think, that will prevent this from happening: the GPL. Any company that does any proprietary work on Linux will be forced to give its source code away to anybody who asks for it, making it impossible for that company to have a competitive edge in the marketplace. That takes the wind out of the old business plan.
Of course, Apple already did exactly this. They just based their OS on FreeBSD instead of Linux. So the idea is sound; it's just that in GPL-land, there's no possibility of commercial motivation, which means no reason to invest the necessary time and work.
Server operating systems, naturally, don't have to be easy to use or to learn at all. That's why companies like IBM and SGI are shipping big servers that are built from the ground up to run Linux: they only have to make a few changes to the OS to get it to do what their customers need, and their competitive advantage is the hardware, so releasing the source code of their OS is no big deal to them.
Dude, if you don't work for emusic, you're going to have to present some kind of credentials or something. This is the biggest-- and lamest-- sales pitch I've seen in a Slashdot comment in a long, long time.
I admit it. I'm a big perv. But when I read "keyboarding love," I thought it was a new euphemism for cybersex.
Man, that is flagrant false advertising.
After you pay for it, you are entitled to view that copy.
Within two sets of constraints. First, within the constraints established by the contract, if any, between the you and the licensor. If that contract says you can only view the content on Tuesdays, then viewing it on Wednesday is a breach of contract.
The other constraint is defined by the law.
The idea that you can-- or even should be able to-- do whatever the heck you want with a copy of a copyrighted work is bogus. Until the work goes into the public domain, the copyright holder gets to determine who gets to do what. The only exceptions are those enumerated in Title 17.
Oooh, so Mother Nature needs a favor?! Well maybe she should have thought of that when she was besetting us with droughts and floods and poison monkeys! Nature started the fight for survival, and now she wants to quit because she's losing. Well I say, "Hard cheese."
How is that reasonable?
How is it not? It is illegal to make, import, or distribute a device the sole purpose of which is to circumvent copy protection in order to facilitate copyright infringement. Set aside for a moment the fact that you may or may not disagree with this law; what part of it is unreasonable?
But you CAN use a brick to break open the lock on your own door.
But not someone else's. As long as a work is under copyright, the lock and the door belong to someone else, not to you.
If you do not like this, do not buy eBooks.
If a contract is unenforceable, there is no legal recourse for a party to take when the other party violates the contract, so if it's legal but unenforceable, it makes little difference.
Okay, we're running up against the word "enforceable" here. First, you said, "if the law considers it unenforceable, then it won't be enforced." That's not right. A contract doesn't have to be enforceable in order to be valid.
Contracts are sometimes referred to as unenforceable, though, but for a different reason. An unenforceable contract is one that, while totally valid, cannot be acted upon by the court. For example, if we signed a contract in 1934 in which you agreed to give me a plate of corn muffins in exchange for painting your fence, and I thought the corn muffins were lousy and refused to paint your fence, and you sued me today for it, the court couldn't award you anything even though you're in the right, because of the statute of limitations. That contract is unenforceable; that is, the court is literally unable to do anything to enforce the contract.
So it's not at all accurate to say that if the court deems a contract unenforceable they won't enforce it. The court will enforce all valid contracts unless they are unable to do so because of some jurisdictional or similar issue.
The DMCA not only makes things that were previously _protected_ by law(fair use, etc.) illegal in many circumstances
Circumvention of access control has never been protected by law. The law had nothing at all to say on the subject until the DMCA came along.
but also does so in total contradiction to other laws.
Which laws? If you're thinking of 107 again, please try to remember that fair use is merely noninfringing. The law does not say that fair use must be allowed technologically and contractually. The DMCA is not in contradiction to any other laws.
If that's not unique, the DMCA makes it possible to be criminally charged, including possible arrest and jail time, for using your own property in a manner you see fit
This is not significant. Most criminal laws make it possible for you to be arrested and jailed for using your property in a manner you see fit. For example, if I throw a brick (my property) at someone else's head (a manner I see fit), I can be arrested, charged, and jailed. The fact that the DMCA makes what was previously not illegal illegal is not a meaningful argument against it.
Also, I would like to point out that it is the DMCA that is forcefully restricting freedoms of the people who are against it, not the other way around.
Uh... huh? Yes, laws exist to restrict freedoms with the threat of force. I really don't understand your point here.
How is the ROT-13 decode table any different from the ASCII decode table?
The purpose of ROT-13 encoding is to obscure content; it is commonly used for such. The purpose of ASCII encoding is not to obscure content; it has never been used for such. The different is as clear as day.
By your argument, a file that has been encoded in ASCII, EBCDIC, or UniCode is also effectively protected.
No. There's a difference between representing letters as numbers in a straightforward transform for technical reasons-- that is, "encoding" in this sense-- and deliberately obscuring the content in order to prevent access-- that is, "encoding" in the cryptographic sense.
The question becomes, what is the purpose of the encoding? If the purpose is to obscure the content to prevent access, then the encoding is an access control mechanism. If the process of encoding makes the content inaccessible until it is decoded, then the encoding is a effective access control mechanism.
The actual parallel is, could Universal then go after Sony for altering their machines so they could record programs as before? I'd say not, since the right to record is established.
I don't like repeating myself, but you really need to understand this: there is no right to record. If you record, it is noninfringing. But you are not legally entitled to record. If Universal releases content that you cannot record, that's just tough luck for you.
Putting up a legal framework to make it illegal to circumvent even trivial copy protection is just plain wrong-headed.
That's not the question. The question is, is it constitutional? The answer is probably yes, but only the Supreme Court can say for certain.
There are lots of laws, and for every one, there is some group of people, small or large, who thinks they are wrong-headed. This does not make those laws unconstitutional.
Does the DMCA make the tools themselves illegal, or just using them to make illegal copies?
The importation and distribution of the tools is illegal. Possession is, as far as I know, not.
This one could be good since it has been demonstrated that this software isn't being used widely to pirate
No such thing has been demonstrated. What was demonstrated was that no copies of works pirated with this tool were found on Kazaa and similar networks. That's evidence; not proof.
Thanks to HR5710, any law enforcement, local, state, or federal, may come into your home and search without first obtaining a warrant.
That's a bald-faced lie, and you should be ashamed of yourself. Read the bill. It says that agents of the department may execute warrants-- just as they always have-- and that agents of the department may make arrests without warrant under exigent circumstances-- just as they always have.
In other words, if an agent of the agency witnesses you planting a bomb, he can arrest you on the spot without a warrant. The same is true of any police officer in the country; hell, the same is true of any citizen in the country. If you are in active commission of a felony, anybody can detain you until the authorities arrive and take you into custody. These things have always been true before, and are nothing new.
I don't read SOLE purpose, I read "primarily designed".
Read further. The statute actually says that it prohibits devices that are primarily designed for circumvention and that have no significant application other than circumvention. The "sole purpose" thing is a simplification, but an accurate one.
The other main problem is that The infringement should -arguably- be punished, which already was the case before DMCA, and not the tools for infringement.
First of all, that would have been a relevant argument in the legislature, but it's not in the judiciary. If the law is valid, "should have" doesn't mean anything.
But beyond that, there's plenty of precedent for banning tools that exist solely to commit crimes. Lock-picking tools, for example, cannot be bought without a license. This statute extends the exact same concept to tools whose purpose is to "pick" the "locks" on copyrighted works.
All you need to do is print out half the alphabet on one line, then, on the next line, print out the other half, directly underneath the first half. Bingo: You have a conversion table.
Yes. And that conversion table is then used to decode ROT-13-encoded content. The act of decoding, and the fact that reading is not possible without first decoding, means that the access to the content is effectively controlled with ROT-13.
As I've said time and again, the question of whether ROT-13 is a good access control mechanism is not relevant. The only relevant question is whether ROT-13 controls access at all, and it clearly does.
Would you care to defend the legitimacy of the flag that disables text-to-speech feature, and explain why it should trump the fair use rights of the blind consumer?
Fair use is not a right; there is no legal mandate on the part of publishers to ensure that their works can be used in every possible noninfringing way. A publisher can publish a work that cannot, for technical or contractual reasons, be used in a way that would technically be noninfringing.
All the law says is that fair use does not infringe. It doesn't say, or even imply, that preventing fair use is against the law.
Making a personal copy of a videotape for backup purposes would probably be considered fair use. But the Macrovision scheme prevents you from doing it. Does that mean Macrovision is illegal? Absolutely not.
The country being free also has nothing to do with it
Of course it does. You and I are free to enter into any legally valid contract. Whether a contract is enforceable or not has no legal bearing, nor is the question of whether the contract is reasonable, or fair, or just. All that matters is whether the contract is valid.
In that a copyright holder can go around accusing people of DMCA violations
Anybody can accuse anybody else of anything. Anybody can sue anybody else for anything. I can sue you for breach of contract right now, if I see fit. My case will have no merit and I'll probably end up paying your court costs and fees, but I can sue you. This condition is not unique to copyright law.
Another problem is that persons can be charged criminally and face jail time for simple violations of things that have always been legal and considered fair before, eg. this very case.
Woop-de-do. Every new law makes things that were previously legal illegal. That's not unique to copyright law, either.
Universal didn't want Sony...
Sony v. Universal is a completely different issue. Sony made devices. Universal said the only purpose of those devices was the illegal reproduction of copyrighted material, so those devices should not be reproduced. The appellate court said that the devices could be used for noninfringing purposes, so they in and of themselves are not illegal.
Consider instead a hypothetical that is closer to the real issue, and not too far from the truth. Say Universal started broadcasting shows that could not be recorded on Sony decks. Could Sony sue Universal? Of course not. It has been upheld that certain noncommercial, in-home uses of a work are noninfringing. That doesn't mean that content producers are legally required to submit to those uses. They are free to use whatever means they like to prevent that sort of use.
So, no this isn't an exception to the copyright holders' rights, it's rights retained by the people.
Don't be so quick to throw around the word "right." Fair use is not now, and has never been, a right. The law grants a monopoly limited in time but unlimited in scope to copyright holders, and then delineates very specific exceptions to that monopoly.
What are the DMCA implications of this?
Let's say there are 20 people in the world who can read ROT-13 encoded text without decoding it. To the rest of the world, ROT-13 is an effective access control mechanism.
Because it *IS* possible to do DeCSS this way
I disagree.
But then, they've never been able to prevent it in the past.
Sure they have. In the past 30 years, technological means have been available. Before that, contractual means were available. Copyright holders are absolutely able to prevent fair use of their works. The law merely says that making fair use is noninfringing. It doesn't say anything about it being mandatory.
I would argue that copyright fundementally requires that fair uses and public domain uses must be made of works.
Well, two things. First, you can argue it all you want, but that's not what the law says. Second, copyright is temporary, so all works will pass into the public domain eventually, at which time anybody can do anything they want.
The intendet result would be that it is impossible (or just very hard) to copy the file.
What? No. We're not talking about copy protection. (I think I may have used the phrase copy protection in one or another of my posts in this thread; if I did, that was my mistake.) We're talking about access control. The intended result is to make it impossible to access the content of the work. ROT-13 makes it impossible to access the content of a work-- you can't read it-- until you run it through ROT-13 again. ROT-13 is, therefore, an effective access control device. You have do do something to the content to get around it, even though that something is trivial.