Slashdot Log In
More Unintended Consequences of the DMCA
Posted by
Zonk
on Thu Apr 13, 2006 04:16 PM
from the some-light-reading dept.
from the some-light-reading dept.
BrianWCarver writes "In the seven years since Congress enacted the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), examples of the law's impact on legitimate consumers, scientists, and competitors continue to mount. A new report released today from the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), 'Unintended Consequences: Seven Years Under the DMCA,' (pdf) collects reports of the misuses of the DMCA -- chilling free expression and scientific research, jeopardizing fair use, impeding competition and innovation, and interfering with other laws on the books. The report updates a previous version issued by EFF in 2003, which Slashdot also covered."
Related Stories
[+]
EFF Reviews 5 Years Under The DMCA 241 comments
briaydemir writes "The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has a new report, Unintended Consequences:
Five Years under the DMCA, detailing how the DMCA has stiffled competition, innovation, scientific research, and fair use. The original news release is here, and the report is also available as a PDF. Check it out if you want a good summary of all the DMCA cases over the past five years."
[+]
News: Death By DMCA 414 comments
Dino writes "There's a good article in the IEEE Spectrum, titled 'Death by DMCA', which talks about how whole classes of devices were eliminated, and how others won't even see the light of day as a result of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. One example is ReplayTV's TiVo-like devices which featured sharing capabilities, along with automatic ad skipping; the company was sued to bankruptcy, and the reincarnated device supported neither sharing nor ad skipping."
[+]
Blizzard Folds on WoW Guide Suit 46 comments
Agent writes "You may remember the suit that Brian Kopp brought against Blizzard, Vivendi and the ESA in March of this year. He sued due to wrongful takedowns under the DMCA of his ebay auctions. The case was settled today, allowing him to resell his guide on eBay and his personal site. The settlement helps more than just Kopp, as it sets a precedent for future interactions of this nature with game companies."
[+]
News: Circuit City Ripping DVDs for Users 467 comments
Grooves writes "Circuit City is offering a DVD transfer service that's sure to enrage the MPAA. For $10 for 1 DVD or $30 for 5, Circuit City will violate the DMCA and
rip commercial DVDs for users to put on their mobile players. From the article: 'This should be a viable market. Software and services are losing out to draconian digital rights management philosophies and anti-consumer technologies aimed at increasing revenues stemming from double-dipping--what I call the industry's penchant for charging twice for the same thing.' They note that fair use
backups of DVDs have not been tested in court because all of the attention is focused on the circumvention software itself." Update: 08/04 22:40 GMT by Z : Acererak writes "Red Herring reports that Circuit City isn't offering any DVD-to-DVD copying scheme. The Slashdotted sign was an isolated screwup."
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
Full
Abbreviated
Hidden
Loading... please wait.
Well, here's the problem (Score:5, Insightful)
So in the face of all that intertia, no one really cares about the extreme cases. I'm guessing the cutover to HDTV in the U.S. (a.k.a. "The Disaster") will generate a lot of problems and make cause a backlash, but right now, it's hard to see anyone in charge or in authority speaking out against the law, and there is almost zero groudswell against it.
Re:Well, here's the problem (Score:3, Insightful)
However, if any of these congresspeople were early adopters of HDTVs that didn't buy the current version of HDCP, and they find out that their $10,000 plasma TVs are worthless for modern HDCP / HD-DVD / BLU-RAY, they're going to be pretty pissed off, and t
Re:Well, here's the problem (Score:2)
Re:Well, here's the problem (Score:3, Insightful)
That could be in part beause the cutoff only means analog goes away, not everything is in HD. I had digital cable for a while (standard defintion) and aside from the increase in cost for two hundred more channels that I'll never watch, the
schadenfreude (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:schadenfreude (Score:3, Interesting)
2. wouldn't you be 50% likely to stutter in english?
3. If you steal a steven wright joke, please attribute.
4. sorry, If you infringe a steven wright joke...
Fair Use (Score:5, Informative)
What bothers me is that things like this cause people to think that there is no such thing as fair use. I work as a teacher and I make a bunch of presentations [colingregorypalmer.net] for my classes. It's school policy that we can't use copyrighted images for any purposes -- even this clear cut case of non-comercial, educational use. This policy is just one of the many in place to eliminate even the possibility that someone may sue for any reason, no matter how in the right we may be. I'd use creative commons images anyway, but this is very frustrating.
-CGP
Re:Fair Use (Score:2)
Years ago, in high school band, our teacher used to photocopy all of the instrument parts to each song and lock the originals in a cabinet so they wouldn't get damaged. Each band arrangement had enough original parts for everyone to read from, give or take a few depending on that year's enrollment.
When I went back as a substitute teacher a few years later, the band teachers still did that for rehearsals, but had to pull out the originals for performances, especially for the annual music festival, where t
Re:Fair Use (Score:2, Insightful)
If that's the policy, you can't use any images except some that are so trivial that they cannot be copyrighted, and the few the copyright of which expired (but make sure that the digital version you downloaded off the internet isn't covered by a new copyright). Even images you produce yourself are automatically protected by copyright.
Re:Fair Use (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Fair Use (Score:2, Insightful)
The most ironic part of that is the fact that real pirates will not be inhibited by this. They'll have the means to do what they are already doing. You almost can't walk down a street in Manhattan, or sit in the subway often enough, without seeing someone sell pirated copies of movies; some of which aren't in theaters yet. Sure they run away when the cops come by, but the fact is that they don't get too many of them.
You know, this sounds
Geeks of the world! Unite! (Score:4, Funny)
As much as we write and complain about the idiots in government creating legislation that is bad for technology and innovation we have yet to solve the problem. I think given the power of /. we could unite a movement to elect someone with an IQ higher than 3 and not in the back pockets of those abusing the DMCA. Viva la Revolution! Think about it. We could form a new political party where rank comes from ability, not tenure. We could take over the world!
...well, after I blog about it...
then there is my L.U.G. meeting...
and the sites I need to code...
Re:Geeks of the world! Unite! (Score:2)
--------------------
Vote for me for
President in
2012
Re:Geeks of the world! Unite! (Score:2, Insightful)
Maybe because the NRA already does that and the ACLU doesn't want to waste money that can be put to other causes?
Re:Geeks of the world! Unite! (Score:4, Informative)
Why does the EFF not defend your Second Amendment rights? Because that's not part of what they do, AND it's already taken care of! There already is a large and very powerful organization known as the NRA [nra.org]. If you're having problems with your Second Amendment rights, call them, they'll be happy to help you with those. If you're having problems with other civil rights, call the ACLU. They'll help you with those problems. If you're hungry, call your local pizza place. They'll help you out in that case. What's wrong with not being everything to everyone, when it's already taken care of by a -more- specialized organization very competent to deal with that issue?
By the way, what is this about the ACLU being the "mouthpiece for the ultraleft"? The ACLU defends all comers whose civil rights have been violated. Granted, minorities' rights tend to be violated more frequently, whether that be gays, blacks, or those with non-mainstream political philosophies. This means that the ACLU will most often be defending those on the fringes-that's not out of their choice, it's because those are the people who will the most frequently need the defending. But the ACLU will defend (and has defended) the right of people to hold Bible studies in public parks at the same time they fight religious language in the Pledge of Allegiance. No contradiction here-the government must stay neutral on religious matters, neither cheerleading nor getting in the way for any particular religion or religion in general. Same for any other matters-one imagines if the government forced Rush Limbaugh off the air tomorrow, the ACLU would scream the first and the loudest, same as if it were Howard Stern. (What Limbaugh's feelings would be on that are another matter entirely.) Howard Stern's simply more likely to see it happen to him.
Parent
Worse are enhacements to the DMCA (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Worse are enhacements to the DMCA (Score:3, Informative)
The actual text of the bill draft reads:
"A person commits an offense if, with the intent to harm or defraud a communication service, the
person tampers with, modifies, or maintains a modification to a communication device provided by or installed by the provider"
Evil (Score:5, Insightful)
The software embedded in HP printer cartridges also apparently causes them to "expire" after a set amount of time, forcing consumers to purchase new ink, even if the cartridge has not run dry.
Now that's damn evil. After I moved to England, I discovered the that my DVDs no longer worked. But I never knew that this was now in printers as well. How long before some jackass decides to regin-encode my whole laptop?
-Grey [wellingtongrey.net]
Only partly true (Score:3, Interesting)
The region coding is an issue that deserves to be held up to scrutiny but the part about expiry is rather misleading. Very few of HP's ink cartridges have an expiry mechanism but the article seems to suggest that they all do.
Just because someone sued it does not automatically mean that the claim has any merit. I am very disappointed that EFF has used such a weak example here, and to make it worse, they go on to say that DMCA has not been used in this case.
There are plenty of good examples to show the bad
EFF: Factually incorrect, again. (Score:4, Informative)
For example, they cite the case of Adobe's claim that Nikon prevented them from decrypting their RAW format files. The facts as the EFF documents explains them, are just plain wrong. There was a brief outcry from some overwrought programmers at Adobe over this issue, but it turned out Nikon was always willing to license their proprietary code to developers like Adobe, even before this little dust-up. Nothing to see here, move along, it was just another testy outburst from a programmer who had too much coffee and didn't want to wait for his managers to finish negotiations with Nikon.
I'll go through the document in more detail, and I'm sure I'll find more deliberate misstatements of facts. The EFF always trumps up charges to inflate its case. Perhaps someday they will learn that this tactic undermines their efforts.
Re:EFF: Factually incorrect, again. (Score:2)
Why should developers have to license Nikon's proprietary code in order to process images from Nikon cameras? The images don't belong to Nikon - they belong to the person who took the picture. It shouldn't be necessary to have Nikon's permission to do this nor should it be necessary to pay Nikon for it. This is exactly the kind of situation in which people should be free to reverse engineer.
Re:EFF: Factually incorrect, again. (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course Nikon will happily license out those decryption routines so one has access to the RAW format; but there's no need to introduce encryption in the first place, or keep the file format non-disclosed, for that matter.
Assume, you're a pro photographer and therefore store your pictures in that very RAW format for maximum resolution. The pictures are *your* creative work, not Nikon's. Who says that they will still support that format in 5 years? Who guarantees you that their software will work with your PC of choice in 5 years?
You buy a camera for making pictures, and you probably want to use that very camera for a period which is usually way longer than what's currently supported by any software manufacturer. There are people who still use old Leicas or Rollei cameras... No pro photographer wants to change their equipment with every new OS generation.
With that licensing model -- Nikon creating an encrypted format which *they* own all rights to and *they* have the power to give and revoke licenses as they want -- they directly affect the photographer in accessing his own creative work.
It's like bringing out an analog camera where the photos are taken scrambled and you can view the photos only using a camera-manufacturer provided lens. Which is provided for a limited time only.
An outburst by a programmer who had too much coffee? Maybe you didn't have enough to see the implications of such artificial crippling of file formats...
Parent
Re:EFF: Factually incorrect, again. (Score:2)
That they are getting bitten actually makes me feel good in a primitive sense.
Re:EFF: Factually incorrect, again. (Score:2)
One very tiny reason I don't mind having Canon gear.
Regards,
Ross
Re:EFF: Factually incorrect, again. (Score:2)
Re:EFF: Factually incorrect, again. (Score:2)
Re:EFF: Factually incorrect, again. (Score:2)
Re:EFF: Factually incorrect, again. (Score:3, Insightful)
I get so tired of how people think that something being digital, suddenly means t
Re:EFF: Factually incorrect, again. (Score:4, Insightful)
However, with the Nikon approach you are either forced to go for a crippled format (and JPEG *is* crippled from a graphical point of view) or use their very own RAW format. It's not like the camera would support a gazillion of (especially competing) lossless formats by default.
And, sorry, but if Nikon wants their development costs back, then they should raise the price per camera, but not via licensing fees on their oh-so-holy *file format*. While the Kodakchrome process may (or may not) have been superior to other films, it never the less was based on true research. A *file format* for pictures definitely is not. It's a container for pixels and, in the case of digital camera, some color/hue/saturation coefficients derived automatically through a calibration process.
Btw, I'm no photographer. For this discussion it also shouldn't matter whether I am one or not. Exchange "Nikon RAW" with "Word DOC" or "Eagle SCH/PCB" if photographers are such a red flag for you. Maybe you'll then get the point.
Parent
Unintended consequences (Score:2)
Re:Unintended consequences (Score:4, Insightful)
That might be in part because good laws are written so as not to have negative unintended consequences. Good laws sometimes do have negative unintended consequences, but they are quickly revised to deal with them. For example, most people agree that laws against speeding are desirable. If such a law is formulated too broadly, it will make it illegal to speed even in emergencies where the risk from speeding is overshadowed by the emergency. The speeding law can be formulated carefully so as to except emergencies, and if it is written too broadly can be revised. The problem with bad laws like the DMCA is that their proponents either haven't formulated them carefully or do not see the negative consequences as negative and so are happy with the overbroad formulation.
Parent
Re:Unintended consequences (Score:2)
Re:Unintended consequences (Score:2)
The do-not-call registry comes to mind. Actually, that's all that comes to mind.
Read EFF report with a little skepticism ... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Read EFF report with a little skepticism ... (Score:2)
Re:Read EFF report with a little skepticism ... (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
Re:Read EFF report with a little skepticism ... (Score:5, Insightful)
You'd have an agenda if you had the Secret Service come to your place of business back in the day and take virtually every top-of-the-line computer you had sunk all your cash into, and then a few years later return those very same computers crushed into small tiny bits.
Does noone remember History? I remember Steve Jackson helping out the WorldCon in New Orleans by loaning us his computers so we could rewrite the dBase III code that their author/artist registration ran on, so we could actually hold the convention with panels.
A year later, he couldn't do that, because the Secret Service took his computers since he was writing a game about Hackers.
Maybe you like living in Soviet Russia, but I don't.
Parent
Not unintended (Score:5, Insightful)
The invisible foot of Government (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:The invisible foot of Government (Score:2)
independent artists have never had it so good. (Score:2, Interesting)
True, but for other things also... (Score:4, Interesting)
Geeks tend to understand the terrible effects the DMCA, because that is what Geeks are knowledgable in. If you are an expert in this kind of thing (or at least knowledgable, as most Slashdot people are), you are going to be able to look at it with a more critical eye than the average American. This is our shit, so we know exactly what the deal is.
But remember, the same thing happens when the government makes a law about terrorism, or illegal drugs, or health care, or the enviornment, or anything else. You might not hear about the same effects the way you hear about the DMCA, but it happens. You support the anti-Terrorism bill, and you don't understand the effect it has on imigrants and their families, or the potential racial-profiling and discrimination it causes. You don't hear about the small family buisnesses that get shut down because they simply don't have the money to comply with some new enviornmental regulation you support. You don't hear about the guy who picks up a hitchhiker, and when they get pulled over by the police, the driver goes to jail for 20 years because the hitchhiker happens to be carrying drugs... you think that tough drug laws are only harming criminals. Or you don't hear about the people who dieing of cancer who can't get a potentially life saving treatment, because the government determines it is "too risky".
Laws are about a subtle as a sledgehammer. With maybe the exception of small local government, society is just too diverse and too complex to make a law that doesn't have serious side effects. A law is a like a prescription drug, we know it is going to have some negative side effect, but we think the problem is worse than the potential side effect. The DMCA isn't a bad law - it is a typical law. It has the same type of negative effects than any law has.
The next time you support some new law, remember the DMCA, and remember the same thing is going to happen with that law. That doesn't mean you won't support the law anyway, but it means that like a drug, you need to know what negative effects it might have in order to evaluate the risks.
But if you think you can make a law that doesn't have significant negative effects on society, you are totally fooling yourself.
unintended? (Score:2, Funny)
stifle speech -check
ensure massive litigation -check
confuse everyone -check
bad for consumers -check
so what's the problem?
In soviet russia... (Score:3, Interesting)
where the hell did the EFF get the idea (Score:4, Insightful)
At least by the corporate legal staffers who presumably actually wrote the bill.
The real problem here is that organizations like the EFF that are supposed to represent our interests are tax-exempt non-profits.
If we want the political power to do something about this, we need our own PAC, our equivalent of the NRA or AARP.
What's going on with telecomm legislation (you heard that the net neutrality bill got killed in committee?) is another example of why we've got to organize to buy our own politicians, not put up with what happens when major corporate interests who don't want real innovation and who don't want the public to find out what's really wrong with their products are the only ones with cash in hand.
We have the best politicians that money can buy, if we want to be represented, we have to ante up.
Re:DVDs (Score:2, Informative)
IANAL but I have heard that, yes, we do have this right in the US. The problem is it is legal for us to make a backup copy yet illegal to bypass the encryption of the DVD which of course is needed to be done first to make the legal backup copy. I prefer to make backups and then put the originals away in case something happens to the backup and it is a shame that it is illegal to do that. The only way I will s
Re:DVDs (Score:2)
Just because you're not willing to spend hundreds of dollars on a more expensive DVD drive so you can legally back up your DVDs, that doesn't mean it isn't possible to do so legally. Difficult, yes, but not impossible,
Re:Positions of power (Score:2)
Re:You can't copyright irony! (Score:2)
Re:You can't copyright irony! (Score:3, Informative)