Boucher's Anti-DMCA Bill Gets High Profile Allies 244
Landaras writes "News.com is reporting that a newly-formed alliance called the Personal Technology Freedom Coalition is throwing their support and lobbying efforts behind Rep. Rick Boucher's (D-Va) Digital Media Consumers' Rights Act.
Members of the Personal Technology Freedom Coalition include Intel, Sun Microsystems, Verizon, SBC, Qwest, Gateway and BellSouth. The EFF and the American Library Association are also in support."
I'm still skeptical though (Score:4, Insightful)
Money Talks, Folks (Score:5, Insightful)
By supporting him (and explaining why), we reinforce his commitment to protecting our copyright rights, and show his peers that there is a group of people (voters) who care enough about the issue to contribute.
To whom should we address our letters? (Score:5, Insightful)
What do other slashdotters think would be the most effective action?
Question (Score:5, Insightful)
The state of American politics is at an all time low - votes are now strictly gathered by the $, either in congress or by the voting public.
The kicker? Politicians can voters on their side by taking high-profile polarizing issues (like abortion), but then vote on all other issues based upon the pocketbook of the lobbys. The DCMA and "Patriot Act" are two clear examples.
I would have never have said this before, but I'll say it now: next time, I vote for the ACLU.
About Time (Score:4, Insightful)
If your elected officials are up for election this year iterate how important this issue is and a vote on this issue could sway your voting. The politicians are supposed to listen to their voters and we as voters need to let them know what we want. This bill and an election year may help give us more leverage when writing to our reps and senators.
Re:The most important section... (Score:3, Insightful)
Mr Boucher is a very smart guy, and is usually very up to date on technology, and, as has been stated and shown here on more than one occasion, actually has a clue when it comes to technology and law.
I wish I still lived in VA so I could vote for him again. But either way, he is a nice guy who really does give a shit about the common person.
What can we do?? (Score:5, Insightful)
And yes, we can be cynical and weep all we want about how money wins in the end, but how many of us did a darn thing about it?? If someone wants to put together an Anti-DMCA rally in D.C, heck, I will be with you shoulder to shoulder..
Lets not whine about how we are defenseless against the MPAA lobby's millions, lets talk about how we plan to kick their ass!
This is similar to my argument about outsourcing.. When news break out that another firm has outsourced to India/Vietnam/China/Russia, there is a sudden outpour of anger and indignation, but once the last post is written, no one seems to care.. What we need is a permanent revolution (yes I am well aware of who said that!)..
Re:This certainly smells of election-year politici (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:This certainly smells of election-year politici (Score:5, Insightful)
and that was just the top four in a search of old stories by score...
And you are correct, at least, in that this is a bold move, and definitely in the right direction. It is indeed a folly to think that media lobbies will just ignore this, which is why we ALL need to come together and slashdot congress both via email and snail mail to get things like this pushed all the way through.
And besides which, they may have almost unlimited funds, but we have unlimited bandwidth collectively...
Why would these companies sign on? (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't get me wrong, I'm happy to see the DMCA nuked. But it would seem they've found something in this bill that suits them quite nicely in a financial sense, which immediately raises my skepticism level about how positive their support really is.
If the DMCA was repealed... (Score:4, Insightful)
My opinion is that DMCA is wrong, but that's because copyright is inherently protected by the law and that we should be able to perform actions along the fair use doctrine.
But I am afraid this type of law (though good) would just reopen the door for any person to just start sharing copyrighted material again. As consumers, we need to respect copyrights.
Re:A good start, but in the end probably ineffecti (Score:2, Insightful)
Jaysyn
Re:To whom should we address our letters? (Score:5, Insightful)
As per usual, it is best to mail your own representatives in Congress. No one else's representatives have to answer to you in November, so they won't care.
Re:Why would these companies sign on? (Score:5, Insightful)
Notice the similarity between the economics of DMCA take down notices and spam?
Re:If the DMCA was repealed... (Score:5, Insightful)
You don't have small children, do you?
Have you ever seen what they can do to a DVD? Have you tried to re-purchase "The Little Mermaid" on DVD in the stores recently? Have you ever wanted to make a copy of the movie that had JUST the movie (no mandatory ads in the beginning)? Did you know that VHS tapes degrade over time and viewing (and that MacroVision prevents their copying?) If you owned a copy of Song of the South, wouldn't you like to have a backup?
Have you ever wanted to leave your original DVD ro CD in the Jukebox, where it's safe, and burn a copy to take with you on vacation?
Did you know that these rights management schemes are effectively useless against for-profit pirates (aside: I'm not one of these)? Have you considered that, with 6 MILLION, ACTIVE file sharers, that accounts for less than 0.1% of the population (aside: I'm not one of these either)?
Now, ask me again: Would these new laws really make a difference to me? Hell yes. It's a PITA to rip and recode a DVD. It's a PITA to dub a VHS tape. It's a PITA to rip and burn a backup CD. It's a trivial process to copy VHS-VHS with two standard VCRs, if no macrovision is involved. It's illegal to manufacture an interface box. It would be a trivial exercise to build a jukebox with a recordable (CD/DVD) drive and let you dub a copy. You can't do that 'cause it's illegal to manufacture such a beast.
Quit treating me like a d@mned criminal.
Re:Simple (Score:3, Insightful)
(1) Does our representatives care about what we think or what the majority of their constituents think?
They wont if we are the minority, and surely an Anti-DMCA bill wont be debated among the majority of its consituents as most of them dont know/dont care. But what if we as a collective, helps the general public in understanding what this bill means, how beneficial it could be for them as well as the ability to innovate, then we might have a chance.
Also by performing as a collective, there is a bigger chance of us being picked up by local media and increases our chances of being noticed by the public. Otherwise either they wont care, or even if we do make an impact, it will be far less of a magnitude.
Come on, people. This community can boast of the multitudes of free thinkers and informed citizens that posts in this forum. Only this forum can boast of the thousands of clicks that can shred a gigantic server like it were paper. Even 1/3rd of the people who post here were willing to stand shoulder to shoulder and walk down the streets of D.C, the world would sit up and take notice. Dont underestimate our power.
Re:If the DMCA was repealed... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Why would these companies sign on? (Score:5, Insightful)
I hate to be cynical (Score:2, Insightful)
I wish it wasn't. I wish that if I wrote a letter it would make a difference. But the battle lines for this were drawn decades ago and the misinformation surrounding this are so high that I'll bet most senators and representatives really feel that only evil pirates are against the DMCA at this point.
Re:If the DMCA was repealed... (Score:1, Insightful)
That's really not the point here. The MPAA and the RIAA can implement all the copy-protection technology they like, and I couldn't care less. It's when they try to prevent me from making fair use backups of cds and dvds I purchased by making it a crime to circumvent their protections with tools that I can create, and makes it a crime to share that information or those tools with anyone interested in it is where I have a problem.
I'd like to see this issue free of all government regulation and have a constant cat-and-mouse game of one-upmanship between Big Media and hundreds of thousands of hackers worldwide. That seems fair to me.
Re:If the DMCA was repealed... (Score:4, Insightful)
If it's illegal to pirate software, it should be at least as illegal to shut it down when it was legitimatly purchased, but it's impossible to seek cost-effective redress in court. UCITA would limit damagaes to the cost of the software, if I read it correctly, so the software company never gets punished and I'd still have to pay court costs. Companies like Microsoft have not been at all careful with how they employ the 'remote disable' feature. I want the guns to take what's mine.
Intel playing both sides, it seems. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:If the DMCA was repealed... (Score:2, Insightful)
:%s/Consumer/Citizen/g (Score:1, Insightful)
The bill seems to be heading in the "right" direction so this is a nitpick, but how about changing the "Consumer" to "Citizen". I'm tired of everyone, even those in government, thinking of people as consumers only. There is more to life than what/how you spend, ya' know!
Support the supporters (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Wouldent this money do better with the EFF (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Hatch And Bono (Score:1, Insightful)
And although there are some "left of left" liberals in Congress, none are as nearly "off the map" as Hatch.
Happily, Hatch is a very predictable Republican vote. But if the senate were more strongly republican in general, I wouldn't mind seeing him leave.
But as the original poster claimed, that isn't going to happen.
Interesting. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Hatch And Bono (Score:4, Insightful)
However, for the most part large corporations throw their money at Republicans, not Democrats, because Republicans are usually more eager to hand out tax cuts and other corporate welfare than are Democrats. And there is a corresponding amount of Republican sucking-up to large corporations in response to this phenomenon.
Re:Hatch And Bono (Score:3, Insightful)
Like you say, special interest groups frequently grease the palms of politicians on both sides of the floor, and Hatch represents an easy way for groups [opensecrets.org] to get their viewpoints heard by Congress.
Re:Hatch And Bono (Score:3, Insightful)
I wrote Representative Boucher today (Score:3, Insightful)
In one case, after I cracked the password of a vender package, I reported the password back to the vender's help desk, where they now give it out to everyone who asks (before I cracked the password, they didn't know it, because I asked).
I urge others with such examples to do the same and give Rep Boucher more data to work with.
Re:If the DMCA was repealed... (Score:4, Insightful)
I mean, fair enough: if I own a knife, that does not give me the right to stab other people with it, nor does it give me the right to use it to cut up other people's property without their say-so. If I own a DVD, I can't legally throw it through somebody's window: I would be disrupting their common law property rights by damaging a window that they own. But I can legally watch the film that is recorded on it: that is my common law property right. And regardless of whether I watch that film using a player I bought in a store; or a player I made out of common household materials; or by looking at the pits and lands, translating the zeros and ones in my head, painting pictures on sheets of card and flicking the edges with my thumb; I am acting within my right to view the picture. It is the end that counts, not the means.
I can (almost) understand a prohibition against attempting to defeat encryption techniques, but the fact is that as the rightful owner of the DVD, I am the intended recipient of the encrypted message and I may use any reasonable means at my disposal to do so. Ownership of the DVD gives me the right to defeat the encryption, just as I cannot be arrested for picking the lock of my own front door.
And this is coming from a land without a written constitution! Surely the US constitution guarantees common law property rights?
Re:Why would these companies sign on? (Score:3, Insightful)
The main function was never to make it criminal to actually commit circumvention, which is essentially impossible to enforce. Someone sitting in their den and circumventing to watch a DVD is essentially undetectable and unarrestable.
The DMCA is really *not* about making it criminal to circumvent.
The main function was to make it criminal to give anyone else information enabling them to circumvent. Someone publishing the instructions for the DeCSS algorithm, or selling a product containing those instructions, is a very visible target and very arrestable.
The DMCA is actually about denying people the *ability* to circumvent by imprisoning anyone who would give them that information and that ability.
Decriminalizing the publication of circumcention information and the sale of products containing such instructions makes the DMCA effectively worthless. By restoring people's *ability* to make fair use you inevitably restore people's *ability* to commit infringment.
Catching and convicting someone for violating the DMCA and commiting infringment really isn't any easier or better than simply catching and convicting someone for commiting infringment. You may as well have simply piled those penalties on top of existing infringment penalties and completely skipped the DMCA itself.
Total nukeage. The DMCA turns into just another mostly unenforcable copyright law with the sole effect of doubling or tripling already obscene criminal jail time for even the most trivial case of infringment.
Do not mistake me as defending the DMCA or opposing the DMCRA however. The DMCRA *must* be passed because it is absolutely intolerable for the DMCA to imprison innocent non-infringing people in some missguided effert to get at infringers. If being denied the ability to imprison innocent and non-infringing people means you can't get effective legal enforcment for your precious DRM, well tough luck, you can't have effective legal enforcment for your precious DRM.
-
Let Companies live in the real world (Score:5, Insightful)
This is the most intelligent thing I've heard anybody say about the copy protection controversy.
Back in the 70s and early 80s HBO was broadcast through the air like DirecTV. People used to build their own receivers using antennas made out of coffee cans (I know -- I had one). After HBO had harassed and threatened antenna owners for several years, the courts finally ruled that the company couldn't control what people did with the broadcast signal in their own homes. HBO's next move was to scramble the signal, which was easily defeated by those with access to spectrum analyzers but largely stymied the coffee-can community. The eventual solution was for HBO to join the cable world.
I always thought this was the sensible way to handle the controversy. Make companies do business in the real world, rather than letting them reshape it to their needs. Lately our government has gone in the opposite direction, with legislators tailoring laws to suit the demands of their financial backers.
One thing that must be repeated over and over is that copyright infringement is not stealing, because copyright is not property. It's a temporary restriction imposed on everybody except the copyright holder. Copyright holders don't "own" anything, and copyright doesn't give them any extra rights, it takes rights away from everybody else for a limited time. Copyright infringement may cause financial losses, but so do lots of other things -- arson, vandalism, assault, murder, for example -- and we don't call those things theft.
It's important to keep repeating this because the content industry has essentially hijacked the concepts of property ownership and theft. They play the part of the little old lady chasing a purse snatcher, and they label critics of current copyright laws as socialists threatening the whole concept of private property.
Re:Let Companies live in the real world (Score:2, Insightful)
Yes, exactly! And "intellectual property" is a deliberately misleading term that certain industries throw around in order to deceive the public into believing in the ownership of ideas and expressions.
Copyrights and patents are not rights but privileges granted by the state in order to encourage more stuff into the public domain in the long run. Any law that doesn't respect that principle is a betrayal of the basis of copyright.