Felten Won't Appeal DMCA Case

phalse phace writes: "The EFF is reporting that Prof. Felten et al will not be appealing the judge's dismissal of his case challenging the DMCA. According to the press release, the government, the RIAA, and a federal court have assured them that threats against his research team will not be repeated. This may be all fine and dandy, but does this promise extend to everyone, or will it only apply to 'his research team?' I'm afraid that until the DMCA is ruled unconstitutional, we'll continue to see others threatened by this ridiculous law."

Next!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Fine and dandy. RIAA does a little financial damage to its detractors and no guarantee is put forth that this type of lawsuit will not be pursued against other parties in the future.

The law still stands and we still stand to lose.

Perhaps the only way we can possibly overcome this industry's inertia is a concerted effort at digitalizing all media and making it public everywhere. I mean the Internet, buses, radio, public access TV, shopping centers, etc. Make their stuff free. The leeches don't deserve to survive if they can't adapt to the information age. *We* are the sharks in these waters, let's start acting like it.

The Prof. is Right, but Can we "Redo" the DMCA?

[Ieshan]

"Not only in computer science, but also across all scientific fields, skeptical analysis of technical claims made by others, and the presentation of detailed evidence to support such analysis, is the heart of the scientific method. To outlaw such analysis is to outlaw the scientific method itself."

I couldn't agree with the Prof. any more. The DMCA is a ridiculous excuse for corporations to dictate how a consumer uses the product they have bought.

However, I think we need to look at this from a "helpful" perspective. Could the slashdot community come up with something that would both help the programmer and the artist (singer, songwriter, person). What about a computerized medium that took the recording industry out of the picture - they're hardly needed anymore anyway. Is there a way to circumvent the corporation and therefore the opression?

I think that we should be focusing on a "better" DMCA. One that has nothing to do with copy-protection, but one that focuses on digital information as a possession, or something like this. I'm no lawyer, so I'm not really sure. But that's my take on it.

The RIAA et all Is Not Stupid

[oni]

They know what a good deal they have with the DMCA. Don't expect them to ever again put themselves in a position to be challanged or to allow the law to be challanged. They'll be smart about it. They'll only use the law in clear cut cases from now on.

Re:The RIAA et all Is Not Stupid

[www.sorehands.com]

Not so.

They will use the law in cases that they can villify the defendant. If the RIAA sees that they will lose, the RIAA will throw the sword out the window and say, "What sword?"

Re:The RIAA et all Is Not Stupid

[haplo21112]

Then our only recourse would seem to be civil disobediance in this case. To purposefully ignore/break/abouse the law to prove how stupid the law really is, and perhaps affect change.

No Case Anymore...

[khronos]

Without the basis of his case, the RIAA threat to sue him, Mr. Felten unfortunately has no legal ground to stand on. I'm sure the RIAA lawyers knew that when they made their pathetic gesture, which was probably motivated by their desire to protect the DMCA from a legal challenge.

The law isn't bad just how it's being applied

[joeblowme]

The intent of the law is good. I'm all for protecting people's intellectual property. The problem is how it's being applied. It shouldn't be used to prosecute people who break encryption and reverse engineer software. It should be used and changed to punish people who use that research for illegal purposes. I like to know that someone can go out and try to hack different types of encryption. That way researches and good people can share that with everyone else so it's not a problem. It makes software companies keep working to make things more secure and strong. All we need is for more companies to get lazy like microsoft and have Code Reds running all over the place. So basically to sum up if you do the research then use it for illegal purposes that should be a crime not just doing the research.

Re:The law isn't bad just how it's being applied

[Ig0r]

A law with good intent doesn't make it a good law. The benefits must outweigh the detriments for any law to last. Just as the prohibition was repealed, if enough people get burned by the DMCA, they will question whether the slight benefits to producers are really worth the detriments to the consumers.

More on the decision not to appeal the Felten case

[Seth Finkelstein]

[Forwarded by Seth David Schoen to the dvd-discuss list]

----- Forwarded message from Cindy Cohn -----

We did not drop the Felten case, of course, the decision was made by the clients, but we support them in it. Obviously we believe that all researchers should be protected, not just those at big institutions.

We felt that the government's unequivocal statement that the DMCA did not reach "attempting to study access control technology" was very broad--broad enough to reach all researchers. (See footnote 5, government's motion to dismiss) Of course we would have preferred an enforceable court decision to that effect, but it seems that both the government's statement and the RIAA's statements along the same lines meant that the Felten case wasn't going to be the best vehicle to ensure that protection, since we would have had to spend at least a year more fighting about even whether we could have a live case before we even got to the bigger questions.

While we want to be able to pick the fact situations and clients who carry this flag, and not leave that to the content holders, we may not have that luxury. Or perhaps once a sufficent number of these threats occur with the content holders backing down only after lawsuits are filed, the courts will see that this is a broader issue that they should address.

Either way, it's not like we're going away. We filed an amicus brief about 1201 in the Elcomsoft case on Monday and have been working with several other folks who face DMCA uncertainties. And of course we will be closely watching the situation and if the government or content holders try to interfere with legitimate research again, we'll be there.

Cindy

Cindy A. Cohn [e-mail]
Legal Director www.eff.org
Electronic Frontier Foundation
454 Shotwell Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
Tel: [phone] x 108
Fax: [phone]

Remember the Scopes Monkey Trial?

[Froobly]

To refresh your memory from history class, in 1925, science teacher John Scopes was tried in the state of Tennessee for teaching human evolution. He was found guilty, but the decision was appealed to the supreme court, and the law was overturned. What many may not realize was that the entire thing was a setup. Scopes had been asked beforehand if he was willing to be arrested for teaching evolution, in order for the law to be tested. In fact, the state of Tennessee had been informed when and where Scopes would be teaching evolution.

How this applies today is that the DMCA, like Tennessee's Anti-Evolution Statute in 1925, has not yet been tried in front of the Supreme Court. If people keep settling out of court on these, the law will never be overturned. Really, our best shot is to set some guy up. Someone who doesn't have a lot to lose.

Have someone blatantly violate the DMCA in a petty way that violates the DMCA without violating other laws, and publicize the hell out of it. Then, when charges are filed, you take it all the way up to the supreme court. The case of Sony vs. Channel Technology would have been a great one, except that they're in England, and the law doesn't work quite the same over there; Sony won on a summary judgment. No trial and no appeal.

Surely another opportunity will present itself?