EFF Makes Call For DMCA Help 315
The Electronic Frontier Foundation
We are looking for diverse, real world examples of the ways in which the lives of ordinary fair users are strangled by the anticircumvention provision of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).
According to Judge Kaplan's ruling in the New York DVD Case (where 2600 publisher Eric Corley was ordered to take down DeCSS and any links to DeCSS), the DMCA makes circumventing access controls wrong, regardless of the reason you are circumventing. If your circumvention intentions are grounded in fair use, good for you. Fair use continues to be constitutionally protected by the First Amendment, but making and providing circumvention tools and even circumventing to do legal fair use is no longer allowed, thanks to Section 1201 of the DMCA.
Applying this rule to videos would mean that although recording David Letterman is constitutionally protected, the use of VCRs and Circuit City's "trafficking" in them are illegal.
We at the EFF feel that following this path will essentially destroy fair use. We foresee countless scenarios where librarians can't create a copy of encrypted material to archive, even if the archiving itself is a lawful use; professors can't use excerpts of encrypted material in classrooms even though the excerpts are a form of protected expression; scholars can't write their own computer programs to analyze the full digitized versions of copyrighted works in all media; and music aficionados can't customize digital searches for thematic research. But what else?
Surely there have got to be more examples, and we need to collect a short but powerful list of them. Tell us your most Draconian visions for a world where circumvention is always criminal even to get to the fair use that's not. Who would lose? And how?
Points will be given for brevity, concreteness and the ability to have your grandmother easily grasp the problem. Demerits applied for overuse of technical jargon, long-winded diatribes and multiple, repetitive messages. The winning scenarios may be discussed in our legal briefs, and, if they're very good, maybe even relied upon in a landmark legal decision throwing the statute out as unconstitutional.
Let's "open source" this problem.
Thanks,
EFF
Re:EXAMPLE (Score:2)
Company Foo... (Score:2)
There is much rejoicing throughout the land as privacy advocates are justified, encryption become de-villanified, and company CIO's everywhere sleep soundly at night knowing that their vitals are locked down.
Then Company Foo disappears, due to a natural disaster, lack of profits due to their great pricing policy, or a guerilla attack from a government agency who's existance became much more difficult because of Algorithm Bar. Or even better, they decide to sit on their profits, and raise the license price by a few powers of 10. Either way, the licenses are not renewed. The software implementing Algorithm Bar deactivates itself. The hardware implementing Algorithm Bar deactivates itself. All those records, all that information, it's locked away safely from everyone, including the copyright holder. In a DMCA-friendly world, it would mean prision time for anyone to try to crack that encryption to access their own records.
To me, this is very very similar to suggesting that if I build a house, and lock my keys inside, I'm not allowed to punch a hole through my basement window to get back inside.
Suggesting that someone isn't allowed to access their information (be it purchased, leased, rented, or personally created) except through approved means is insane. If a law was in place that said they had to call a locksmith every time their door blew shut and locked them out instead of just opening it with a credit card, or had to call the police to open their gym locker if they forget the combination rather than cutting the two dollar lock off, people would be furious. Information is just a specific form of property. Why should we tolerate someone limiting our access to ANY particular form of property?
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Re:A real world example. (Score:2)
Re:Segregation (Score:2)
Funny, I thought that attitude was limited to idiots like Jerry Falwell, Pat Buchanan, etc
And Ghandi, don't forget to ask him.
...phil
Re:This will not be popular here but it is a... (Score:2)
Re:Your _Own_ Sound Recordings (Score:2)
Wish I could help.... (Score:2)
Re:Some possible examples. (Score:2)
If your package produced identical output for the same input, it would violate the DMCA, even though the code itself is all covered by the 1st Ammendment.
Re:This will not be popular here but it is a... (Score:2)
Re:This will not be popular here but it is a... (Score:2)
On a related note, Epic themselves have realised that they don't gain anything by having hte CD check there, and so they removed it from the latest patch version, 436. Just patch to that version, and you won't need the copy protection cracks. But yes, I'd say your example falls under fair use, even if I don't know enough about the DMCA to say if it's being violated or not.
Performance Copyright and access to circumvention. (Score:2)
Doesn't matter really. Distribution of circumvention is illegal under DMCA- meaning the original author's argument stands. If you own the IP or are acting on the behalf of the owner, and you're not a hacker- you're out of luck saving anything from a "protected" device unless someone breaks the law for you or you're some sort of hacker intimately familiar with the encryption scheme and the innards of the device.
In relation to the EFF, MPAA, RIAA (Score:2)
Being ostacized because of being witless to the pop culture will only further us from the point of influence in peoples lives. A boycott of the media monsters would only mean an exclusion from the society we are trying to protect.
The church has somthing known as titheing, where poeple give a tenth of their income to the church. A scheduled donation to help battle sin, hmmmm....
In response to people's (including myself) hypocracy denouning the MPAA, but gawking over the latest movie, I will be giving money to the EFF dollar for dollar for every RIAA/MPAA movie or song, I purchase or pay them money for. If half of slashdot did that, think of the politicians EFF could buy(sorry but that is the way the game is played right now.) Look out AARP!
So next time you see someone drooling over Star Wars#, or the lastest remix of whatever, don't tell them to stop. Gently remind them to make two piles of money, and enjoy it.
Re:A real world example. (Score:2)
So, while this is a UK based situation, international treaties guarantee my right to buy copyrighted material from anywhere in the world and make use of it elsewhere, the region coding and/or macrovision technology prevent me from doing so.
Re:DMCA to cover my ass (Score:2)
No, because law enforcement isn't hampered by the DMCA [cornell.edu].
You think they would've let that one get by them?
Jay (=
How many donated to the EFF? (Score:2)
For all the work they are doing to help you, have you contributed? $20 isn't alot for anyone here. I'd wager that most probably spent that in time posting to slashdot and preaching to the choir about what the EFF is fighting for.
I'm sure anyone could do the quick math, and realize how much financial support the slasdhot community can give to the EFF. So go and contribute your part to what this organization is doing.
I'll step off my soapbox now. I'll now bring you back to your normally scheduled trolls, already in progress. (^_^)
Reading a book. (Score:2)
Ability to better onself RESTRICTED! (Score:2)
This freedom is something as a child that was a given. How else does one learn about things? You could answer "go to school" or maybe "get an apprenticeship". I dreamed of those things, and in fact did do work at a local TV repair shop FOR FREE just to learn more. (I have since fixed lots of televisions for people who needed it.) This sort of thing is ok, but not for all. Some of us want to learn early, or can't afford specialized school, or both.
My current position in life is a product of that early free time. I now get paid to help people, and solve problems. Just what I enjoyed doing as a kid. Lucky me -- or is it? Now I have to wonder as I have kids of my own, and they begin to ask questions. How do I answer? I know what I did, but that now is very quickly becoming criminalized. How can what I did be wrong? Why should the knowing be all mixed up with the doing? I feel just like the little kid long ago. Always being told basically that knowing how to do something is as bad as actually doing it. Worse I now am being told that if I actually do know something, that telling someone else is a crime because the information I possess is a device!?! WTF!
I believe that people have the right not to be dependant on others for things in life. This means fixing what is broken, learning new skills, and understanding the world around them. When someone has lots of money, they really don't have to worry. But when someone does not have a lot of money, well what do they do? They either do without, or learn how to better themselves, or become criminals. If you take away the ability to learn new things, or lock up information in such a way that it is hard to use, then what do you have left? Have-nots and criminals? Where is the sense in that?
My argument is this: The DMCA affects me in everyday life in that it restricts my ability to understand technology upon which I depend. This is not just movies, but understanding of the function of the world in a fundamental way. Does this understanding give me the power to break the law, and make use of material that I did not pay for? Most likely yes. I also know how to pick locks, copy media, and hot-wire cars among other things. Do I do them? NO! Those actions are morally wrong, unless someone needs them done, or I need them done for myself, on things THAT I OWN. We are not childeren. Most people have the common sense to make good use of what they know or suffer the consequences.
There has to be a balance between the control needed to keep the media giants happy, and letting people have some control over parts of their increasingly digital lives. Without this, I see a very harsh place to live where knowing something is as criminal as doing it. America the free becomes, America the ignorant.
Software Author != Copyright Owner (Score:2)
Wait a minute... While the scenario you mention is indeed regrettable, I don't think it's a DMCA issue. If the database was created by the doctor, then the software vendor is surely not the copyright owner. The copyright owner is the only entity whose permission you need to circumvent. That's why MPAA (not DVD CCA) sued 2600 (on the assumption that a MPAA member is always the copyright owner whenever CSS is circumvented).
Either the doctor owns the database, or no one does. If the doctor wishes to crack the database, DMCA can't stop him.
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Wang didn't own the documents (Score:2)
The firm you worked for was the copyright owner of the documents in question. Wang was not. Therefore, DMCA does not prohibit what you did.
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Illegal circumvention tools (Score:2)
This is indeed a danger, and your comment is much more insightful than most of the examples I have seen around here. However, I'm not sure such software would be ruled illegal. (Keep in mind that this decision is really made by a judge, not the DMCA since it was so poorly written.)
DMCA defines the word "circumvent" in a weird way that most of us mere humans may be unfamiliar with. It's in the "circumvent" definition that the question comes up of whether or not the copyright owner's authorization has been obtained.
Therefore, if a tool is primarily used by people to gain access to their own documents, then the tool might be ruled as not circumventing! I don't mean that it circumvents with permission; I mean that it doesn't circumvent at all, since lack of permission is required to circumvention to happen. Therefore, the tool may be legal, since its purpose would not be to circumvent.
This is different from the DeCSS situation, since (so far) nobody has used that tool to access their own copyrighted work. Unfortunately, up to now, all CSS-protected works have been owned by MPAA members. Changing this fact may cause DeCSS to become legal.
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Re:Software Author != Copyright Owner (Score:2)
Sounds like a good reason to not accept that EULA.
Forgive my skepticism, but could you (or anyone else) give an example of a license that has this term in it?
But even if you're right, then it's not specifically a DMCA issue. If people don't own their own documents, then they were already very fucked before DMCA came along. For example, if Microsoft owns all MS Word documents, then emailing a MS Word document to someone else, is a copyright violation. Sounds like a great argument for convincing people to use standard formats instead. ;-)
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Re:Your _Own_ Sound Recordings (Score:2)
Re:Authorship copyrights (Score:2)
The composers have a copyright on the music. If you do not have the right to play it, then you can't, period. However, the recording is a seperate copyright. This means that if you want to play a recording in the store, you technically need both the composer copyright and the recorder copyright to do so.
Of course, in real life, this is absurd, so in the real music business, the recorders obtain the rights to the composer copyright (not exclusive, just enough), and take care of the finances on their end, so the player doesn't have to.
Finally, for a personal recording for archival purposes that will not be distributed, even in the unlikely event that this is some theoretical violation of copyright, damages are precisely zero and thus the composer can't "sue the recorder into oblivion".
Re:Your _Own_ Sound Recordings (Score:2)
Re:Authorship copyrights (Score:2)
Re:Your _Own_ Sound Recordings (Score:2)
Indeed, this is part of the problem with the DMCA. It goes way beyond traditional copyright. By giving access restriction such holy status, it allows device manufacturors to control us in these ways, despite the fact we own the copyright. That's my very point!
Re:Your _Own_ Sound Recordings (Score:2)
Re:Authorship copyrights (Score:2)
Bands buy the right to perform the songs when they buy the sheet music, which should also be obvious that it works that way. Check your facts before you correct, please.
Re:A real world example. (Score:2)
Laserdiscs, of which I own about 35 or so, don't.
Pope
Freedom is Slavery! Ignorance is Strength! Monopolies offer Choice!
Other implications. (Score:2)
Will the consumer of the future have any rights at all?
Re:Some possible examples. (Score:2)
It doesn't say anything about circumventing copyright, just circumventing access controls. It doesn't matter if you intend the device to be legally used on your own materials, it still circumvents an access control mechanism.
in (b) in says "... limited commercially significant purpose
If you create this device to access your own works it will have no commercial use, let alone outside of circumventing access controls.
This is why DeCSS would have been squashed under any circumstances. It has no commercial purpose, the players that will use it are free. It also has no other use, it exists to view DVDs, like a DVD player abvously does.
The law is (imho) an obvious attempt to squash any form of competition against the (mon/duo)poly situation where a limited cartel of companies produce the movies and the mechanism to view them.
Re:A real world example. (Score:2)
Re:Your _Own_ Sound Recordings (Score:2)
While no fan of Napster (it's called a business plan people), the situation is similar. There is nothing inherently illegal about what they do (a p2p
Re:Some possible examples. (Score:2)
Maybe that's what you are getting at, but I felt it needed to be repeated.
BTW, I've got several Beta tapes that have been 'archived' to VHS. Guess that won't happen again (and the ones that were worthwhile have been bought again on DVD. But suppose that, as often happens, the old, under-performing movies are not released in the new format. What happens then?)
Re:D I own music? Or just license to listen? (Score:2)
Re:Some obvious examples (Score:2)
Obviously, the DCMA requires that the player and monitor will detect an overly-long pause or monitor being off as a protection failure and they'll restart or shutdown.
DVD vs SDMI vs Generic vs OompahTech (Score:2)
I already haven't been able to put DVDs on my Christmas list because I won't buy DVDs until I can get Linux-compatible DVD players. I want to be able to use discs on any of my devices with screens, just as I can play my music CDs on any of my CD devices with speakers. The DVD industry and I are already unable to do business due to DVD restrictions.
Also, as you can tell by looking at the Cartoon Network schedule, "anime" is becoming increasingly popular here in the USA. I've liked it ever since "Star Blazers". But the DVD region coding is trying to block my ability to view anime bought from Japan. This undoubtedly is also happening for many other people with interests which happen to originate from other countries.
SDMI is trying to create music coding to restrict how equipment will process music. I anticipate future problems with people trying to listen to music from future international music crazes -- something which the music industry has depended upon for decades (anyone remember the effect of that little "English Invasion" in the 1960s?).
Even if there are no "region code" problems with SDMI, there will be small bands producing non-SDMI music which will accidentally trigger SDMI hardware. There will be other countries that will decide to create something like SDMI protection independently, and incompatible media will be produced (or worse: music damaged multiple times by multiple protection encoding).
And, of course, SDMI equipment is likely to make it difficult for me to put my legal CD in a player at home, have the speakers in my house detect me and have the music follow me, and have the same music from my favorite bands follow me out of the house and into my car, along the drive to work, and continue when I open my laptop. Right now I could do that, and makers of expensive whole-house music systems have been demonstrating much of that for decades. SDMI wants me to pay more for less -- or to listen to less music. [Technical note: I'd not use a radio link during my drive in the car. I'd use the IR or RF link between my garage and car to copy the music to the car audio system, and when I entered the car the car would tell the house to stop playing from the CD. I'm still listening to what I bought and nobody else is.]
There's always the constitutional argument (Score:2)
However, a DMCA protection mechanism effectively secures this right for an unlimited time.
Also, this clause provides for an exclusive right. If I innocently use a DMCA protection mechanism to record my "Writings and Discoveries", then if circumventing the mechanism becomes necessary to retrieve my "Writings and Discoveries", but is illegal (or effectively so), then I have lost my exclusive right.
Real World Case: E-Commerce Crypto Security (Score:2)
I used to be a cypherpunk for an e-commerce company. E-commerce obviously relies on good encryption, due to its use of credit card data. Indeed, failure to use such good encryption for credit data can lead to civil lawsuits for negligence, and possibly even criminal prosecution.
An e-commerce company is legally negligent if it uses encryption of dubious strength. The e-commerce company, or some trustworthy third party, must be able to test the decryption. The only way to do that is to actually try to break the encryption--something that, by virtue of the DMCA, is illegal.
Here's the scenario. A crypto vendor sells a "strong" encryption scheme. It unknowingly allows a "back door" (not rare at all--SSL had the "million question attack"). The current defense against such a vulnerability, independant attempts to crack the crypto (exactly what found the million question attack), are illegal.
The result is that the Bad Guys crack the crypto first, then start nabbing credit card data from an e-commerce site left and right. If the crackers are smart, nobody figures it out for months.
When people find out, customers file a class action lawsuit against the e-commerce site, claiming negligence because they used poor crypto hardware/software.
In short: the DMCA makes e-commerce a very risky business, indeed.
Real-World case: cable descramblers (Score:2)
Imagine being caught in a situation where the "legal decryption hardware" (descramblers, DVD players, etc.) are no longer available for sale. What if people switched to a rental model? Consumers would have virtually no protection.
Uh, no. (Score:2)
*HONK!* Better luck next time.
Debuggers ILLEGAL: Reductio ad absurdam (Score:2)
So when the DMCA outlaws tools to circumvent encryption, does it then require all software to be buggy?
Re:Your _Own_ Sound Recordings (Score:2)
Re:Software Author != Copyright Owner (Score:2)
create (ie. not created by employees): look at the recent story of AOL
trying to assert copyright over the creative works of volunteer
editors at dmoz (or Open Directory Project; this matter is still not
resolved).
Re:Your _Own_ Sound Recordings (Score:2)
though, this aspect of the DMCA is well worked over, and wasn't what
the EFF was after: they were after instances of *fair use* of
copyrighted material that DMCA forbids.
What was extraordinary about the DeCSS trial was that the RIAA
didn't pretend that either DeCSS had been used to infringe copyright,
or that it provided a viable technology for profitable piracy, but
argued speculatively that changes in price could make it profitable,
and this possible future use for piracy was the only relevant use of
DeCSS. Well, what was extraordinary was that they got away with it...
Data vs. Representation (Score:2)
So my question is, what happens when DVD becomes obsolete? If the consumer has a license for the data, he can convert the data on the DVD to a new format and end of story. However, if the industry decides five years from now to:
- start manufacturing players and "disks" in the new media, and
- stop manufacturing DVD players,
the consumer has no choice but to repurchase their entire DVD library.A real-world example? Well, the closest I could come to a real-world example would be if the only people who could legally manufacture a record player, a CD player, a cassette tape player, or a DAT player, was a licensee of the RIAA itself, and that the licensee agreed to stop manufacturing the old technology as soon as the new technology was announced.
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Violating Yourself (Score:2)
-- Rich
Re:Segregation (Score:2)
Re:The Digital Video Interface - DVI (Score:2)
False.
Samsung's newest top-of-the-line monitor [samsungusa.com] doesn't have DVI inputs, just plain old 15 pin.
Re:US laws do not apply in Costa Rica (Score:2)
U.S. Laws don't apply in Norway either - unless your last name is Johansen. [h2k.net]
Re:Some scenarios (Score:2)
VValdo.
I'll try a few more, though those are tough to beat.
Re:here's an example (Score:2)
_____________
Re:This will not be popular here but it is a... (Score:2)
Re:Segregation (Score:2)
"Nothing is good or bad, but thinking makes it so". (it's a paraphrase, too lazy to find it on the web)
Everyone has different morals, and no-one should ever be subject, against their will, to someone else's morals or beliefs.
Morals are very rarely consistent across societies, rarely consistent in a culture across a period of time, and usually inconsistent between members of the same culture in the same time. Ergo, morality is not something you should ever take a given; and you can't whine about something that is evil because you don't like it. Like a previous poster said, that is for people like Jerry Falwell and other moronic religous zealots.
And besides, morality and legality have little to do with each other, right?
Of course, now with the DMCA, this becomes a legal issue. Can you prove that the DMCA is an illegal or unconstitutional? Can you state that the DMCA goes against fair use? If you can, then great, go to it. If you can't, life's tough, live with it.
If you can ignore the law, successfully, under civil disobediance, and get it overturned, then good. If not, tough.
Or, like the EFF, you can try to prove that the law is detrimental, and try to beat it that was. What are the precidents for other laws of this caliber? Bluntly put, what are the odds of this being more than a ineffectual waste of time? Or even succeeding?
Bluntly put, you have a legal system in place; use it, and accept the decision on it. The morality side of things is a waste of time; my morals are my own, not yours, not his or hers, not theirs, and not Slashdot's.
Re:Segregation (Score:2)
Arguably, I don't obey *all* of the laws to fit in this society; the general guidelines imply that several laws are minor and are rarely adhered to. Speed laws are a good example of this. Do you feel, as a member of this society, you must obey all of society's laws? Especially the DMCA?
I don't consider that society implies that individuals don't matter; I consider that society is more of a set of guidelines for a group of individuals to interact within a structured framework. If you wish to be a part of that society, you have to adhere to those guidelines. To think that individuals don't matter in a society is wrong wrong wrong; it's like saying that the foundations don't matter in a building.
> but expressing opinions of any kind on slashdot
> is not adhereing to the "code"
Since when? CmdrTaco, Roblimo, and every Tom, Dick, and Joe that is either a regular contributor or a frequent poster expresses opinions; I will just assume that I can post of my opinions freely. I have a positive karma that allows a 2 point posting by default. More importantly, from posting an opinion, I am having an intelligent conversation with an intelligent person. Therefore, opinions seem to be acceptable posting material.
Re:Segregation (Score:2)
Honestly, I can do anything I can mentally conceive, and physically enact, if I want to. Morally, I believe that everyone, *as an individual*, has that basic right.
However:
I have to voluntarily surrender (most of) my amorality to be a part of this society, the Western society. I have to accept the general guidelines, laws, and morals of society to be a functioning part of it. Continuing on, to work at the company I am employed at, I have to accept their additional moral structure as part of my employment contract. Continuing even further, I am part of a profession, and I must also respect, and uphold my professions code of ethics if I wish to maintain my membership.
In fact, you could even state that to be a part of the Slashdot community, I adhere to the unspoken moral system of the intelligent posters, in that I speak my mind on the manners in an intelligent fashion, I try to be respectful to other intelligent posters (as is yourself) who may or may not agree with me, and don't "First Post", troll, spam, or flame.
However:
The amount of variation in Western morals is immense, for even for most of the non-arbitrarily defined laws and morals. Is the DMCA a moral law? Obviously, to someone, it must be; as it *is* law. To most people here, it isn't. That's a pretty wide gulf on the morality scale, and because of that, no-one is right on it. The "stretch", so to speak, I have to exercise in moral boundaries is immense; and, quite unfortunately, the accountability in today's society for "being moral" is horrible weak.
Yes, considering myself amoral is probably sociopathic; but, in the end, to be a part of this society, I have the responsibility to learn, and adhere to, that society's basic principles, or suffer the punishments for ignoring them. It is my choice to be a Westerner; as such, I am bound by the culture I have voluntarily chosen.
I hope I have answered your implicit question and assuaged your worries about my moral structure, Mr. Ramsey. Thank you for the opportunity to express myself, and the opportunity to make me think by challenging my beliefs in a polite fashion.
Re:Segregation (Score:2)
Oh, no, I am not saying it is a waste of time to oppose anything stupid; I am just saying:
A) Prove it is stupid.
B) Verify that it is stupid.
C) Consider several methodologies to fight it, especially considering the ones that use the system in place (or change the system, your choice)
E) Accept the results.
I fully agree with you that you must stand up for your rights, and routinely defend them. I just never remember being granted the right to reverse engineer whatever I want. Why do you think you have that right?
I agree with you that big business has a lot of power in today's society. But why does big business want my rights, and want to control me? Arguably, several business already have ungodly amounts of power over me: Lego, Blizzard, my company of employment, Lucas Films, to name a few.
How do you propose we "look at [a law] seriously and figure out whether [a law] is right or not?" and then get our esteemed decision acted upon? I am inferring from you that voting is not the answer.
Morality has something to do with legality? I have to disagree with that for the most part. An example: in my home country of Canada, as of 1983, it was perfectly legal for a someone to rape their spouse. Is that moral? Maybe originally, one day, laws were based on morality; but now?
"If morality doesn't matter, and only the "legal" system matters, well then, we've all already given up our rights."
Why do you say that? Your "rights" are guaranteed by law, are they not? Either you understand that the laws of the land work for you as well or against you, or move somewhere else. I choose to live here; I must live with the consequences of that action.
To sum up, while the legal system has flaws, ultimately, it is all you have. It's not the best you could have, but it's not the worst. If you can use it to kill the DMCA, go for it; if not, you can't.
University class censored (Score:2)
As covered on slashdot [slashdot.org] and elsewhere, I was forced to retroactively change my class notes, change my syllabus, and forbidden from demonstrating DeCSS for my Linux Administration Class [unc.edu] at UNC-Chapel Hill. Note this was months and months before DeCSS was found to be illegal.
Although at least one deposition taken in the 2600 case identified me and 2 other uses of DeCSS in higher education, I believe I was the only person who actually demonstrated its use in a legitimate classroom context. Or tried to...
Note that the LoC's recent exceptions have done nothing to change UNC's interpretation that it's illegal for me to demonstrate anti-circumvention devices (or DeCSS, anyway) in my class, regardless of how clearly it related to my class content.
Freelance creatives and artists (Score:2)
I am a freelance visual effects operator creating graphics effects work for feature films and tv commercials. The contract I sign when working explicitly states that I do not own the copyright to works I create, and that full ownership of copyright (usually) belongs to the production company.
Normally, after finishing a job the company will give me copies of the work I have done in a non protected digital format which I can then use for my own personal use in my showreel which I must show to other companies to obtain more work.
However sometimes things go wrong, the company goes bankrupt or there is a falling out between the freelancer and the company or they just forget and you don't have a copy to use for your showreel. In these cases I can get a copy of the DVD of the film in which work I have done appears and using DeCSS obtain an unencrypted portion of the shots I have worked on to use in my showreel.
This showreel is not distributed, it is taken by me and shown to a small number of companies to get more work and so falls under fair use. This same situation could happen to print graphics designers or sound engineers or artists once DMCA protected mechanisms become more prevelant.
I'm a little late, but... (Score:2)
I have a simple problem involving DVDs. I am planning to put together a web page that talks about the excellent cinematography that was done for some of the big 70mm epics of the 50s and 60s. I wanted to be able to grab a screenshot from the "West Side Story" DVD, and along with a screenshot of a more recent movie (haven't decided which one) shot using the crummy Super-35 format, and then compare the two.
Unfortunately, I cannot grab any such screenshots using licensed DVD players, since they all prevent taking screenshots. The only way to do this would be to use DeCSS to extract the MPEG-2 video off the discs and then grab single-frame shots using video editing software. However, this is currently illegal under the anti-circumvention provision.
I think this easily qualifies as "fair use", since it is for the purposes of criticism. It would be a very brief quote, since all I want is to grab a single frame, that is, 1/24th of a second, from a 2-hour movie.
The anti-circumvention provision of the DMCA is thus preventing me from exercising my fair use rights for the purposes of criticism. Are we really going to allow big companies to prevent criticism in the digital age?
Re:The Digital Video Interface - DVI (Score:2)
When it comes down to it, those who care will buy monitors that have non-DVI inputs, and there will be a significant market for these devices. This is especially true as computer competence levels rise within the general populace (as it is currently in most universities).
Right now this is just Intel trying to be smarmy with the IP nazis, once they realize it'll lose them money they'll drop it.
The Internet's Promise (Score:2)
All this bitching and moaning from the RIAA and the MPAA is a red herring. The real reason they want these controls in place is because they will effectively allow these organizations to continue their publishing monopolies.
In the future, my garage band may be able to play its own music but the rest of the world may not be able to listen to that music because we won't have the RIAA blessing necessary to encode our music in the format everyone uses. Same thing goes for video or even plain text and program code.
The established industry wants to lock me into their established solutions. The DMCA is about nothing more than elminating your choices as a consumer and making it illegal to compete with the established media companies. And it ultimately will give them the power to allow or deny access to any idea anyone has anywhere.
If that's not against both the spirit and the letter of the First Ammendment and against the spirit of the original intent of copyright, I don't know what is.
Re:Loss of older media to the public domain (Score:2)
Space-shift TV (Score:2)
Ignoring the dubious status of DivX, this is something I'd like to continue to do legally! The way industry/legislation is leaning, they'd love to put a protection mechanism on upcoming digital broadcasts so that I can't do this. The DMCA will be a major tool in making it fly legally.
Re:Segregation (Score:2)
Old formats (Score:2)
Auto manufacturers analogy (Score:2)
A car company build a car, using many patented
parts and copyrighted designs in the process.
If we applied the DMCA philosophy to a car, then
wrenches would be illegal, since you could use
them to take apart and copy those patented items.
YOU COULD NOT BUY A WRENCH, even though all you
wanted it for was to change your oil! THAT is how
the DMCA works!
Perpetual copyright (Score:2)
what's going to happen when the copyright expires
Copyright expires? I thought Congress made copyrights perpetual in the United States [everything2.com], exploiting a loophole in the Constitution.
Welcome to the Nightmare of the Information Age: (Score:2)
Learning is essential to our nation to grow and be the beacon of light that attracts the best and the brightest, we need the right to Fair Use regardless of the data format, regardless of the encryption, and regardless of what the corporations think.
The citizens have the unquestionable right to decode and decrypt any part or whole of any data to use in the Fair Use doctrine.
Allow me to make my point using this example: NYU College of Dentistry has made it voluntary that students not buy the books as books, but to buy the books on a DVD ROM. The DVD is time sensitive, which costs $600 for one year of use. After which you will need to update your license to continue access to the books. You cannot print from this book, and notes taken will have to be kept elsewhere.
Now please look at your library of law books. Many of these volumes are old, and outdated to some degree or another, but the knowledge within is still valid, still readily accessible. A 25-year-old book can still be read, shared, and learned from.
Now imagine if all of those books were on a computer database that required you to pay a yearly fee to access (Westlaw not withstanding), what would happen if you could not access an important piece of information?
This is what we are fighting agaist. The naked profitism under the guese of protecting the copyright holder.
Content should not be allowed to be licensed. If the Content is in the form of software, it should not be allowed to be encrypted, and if encrypted, it should not be illegal to decrypt by any means. Fair Use is deeply tied to the First Amendment, and need to have all the protections granted to it by the courts.
Thank you.
Re:Violating Yourself (Score:2)
As for your subscription-based model, from what I've seen, the next release of Microsoft Office will be, based on a recent
Some more examples (Score:3)
Note that I'm following here, because as a whole, my original post was triggering the lameness filter, oy!
Copy protection on CDs: Ok, this is a necessary evil to have to reduce piracy. However, as copy protection schemes move beyond current CD technology, people are finding that some older devices cannot read the disc due to the copy protection, and therefore can't use the media as purchased. In addition, it's been legal to make a backup copy of software for private use, but these copy protection schemes generally prevent the disc from being copied in it's entirity; if the disc is damaged, you can 'repurchase' a new one. However, there are sites out there that describe how to circumvent the copy protection to make such fair uses of the material, or small programs that do this, but by the DMCA, these are illegal. (Yes, these programs can enable further piracy as well, but that's not their only intent). The only solution for the fair use here is to spend more money to the media people, which is certainly not fair use anymore.
DCMA is a coperate loophole (Score:3)
1) By tying access controls to "Fair Use" materal they are attempting to control piracy by controling access to the data. Although their intension were ok, the way they do this block all legitimate use of the data without designing your own decryption device. Some of the "Fair use" items consumers can no longer take advantage of without breaking parts of the DCMA.
a) Backing up videos
b) Using segments for lawful criticism or journalistic features
c) Sound bites
2) The DMCD is and end run around the materal EVER going into the public domain. Copyright is a time limited monopoly, but if this kind of legislation were to continue movies will never fall under public domain. The copyrights might expire, but with no LEGAL way to recover the data the companies still retain full control and monopoly status on the media.
Some of the falicies that people work under is that we are living in a consumer driven society. The multinational coperations are driving our societies not us. They know exactly what to do to maximize their profits. Would CD's ever have taken off if the media companies didn't kill sales of records by refusing to buy them back. Do you think we have any control now as the media companies try to kill off "Piratable" media formats one by one. What happens when they do this next time? When DVD-RW are cheap and easy to copy.... when will it stop?
"Those who do not know their rights are bound to lose them"
Programming Assignemnt (Score:3)
A couple of years ago, one of my friends was taking a class in Java programming, we had a final assignment where we were supposed to form groups and write a program of our choice (our teracher had to approve the program idea first, of course).
My friend and his group decided they would make a final-fantasy style RPG, after working for about 40-50 (hes not the quickest coder in the world) hours, my friend had a working overwold engine, where he could walk around and it looked pretty good. He had the compiled
Here's an even simpler example (Score:3)
I run my TV picture from my Netstream decoder card to it, and when I want to watch movies on TV and I'm running from my Windows partition, there's no problem, that's just fine--I use Remote Selector to turn Macrovision off.
Sadly, there's no Linux equivalent Macrovision disabler--so when I use the Netstream Linux drivers, I get Macrovision. And to add insult to injury, the Linux "miniviewer" program--which lets you play the DVDs to your X session, in which I could watch them unmessedup--does not work for me. So in Linux, I can only watch unMacrovised movies--my Hong Kong imports and the special-edition films from MGM/UA, which does not seem to encode its movies that way.
--
Your _Own_ Sound Recordings (Score:3)
However, in order to prevent you from pirating music with it (by plugging in the output of your music system to this thing's input), it has a copyright protection device on it, SDMI compliant. If it detects a SDMI watermark, it will record it but subsequently refuse to allow you to extract it to your own computer. Thus, it encrypts all recordings on it's internal hard drive so you can't just take the hard drive out, plug it into your computer, and extract the copyrighted audio. Thus, under the terms of the DMCA, this is an access control device.
So, having gotten a great deal on a device that records hundreds of hours of sound in a high-quality sound format, you decide to record your daughters band recital, where she has a very difficult flute solo. She pulls it off and brings tears to everybody's eyes, and the device captures it with ultra high fidelity.
Unfortunately, on the way out to the car, you drop the device. The hard drive and the recording is intact, but you cracked the circuit board the rest of the device relies on to communicate with a computer, and it's not ever communicating with a computer again. Unfortunately, the manufacturor has made it impossible to repair or move the hard drive to a new version of that device, because for security purposes, all of the devices use different factory-set encryption keys. (They don't want you to repair it, they want you to buy a new one.) The circuit board can't be repaired either, because you basically can't repair circuit boards that badly damaged.
If you could attach the device's hard drive to the computer, you could still extract your own recording, if it wasn't encrypted so you can't use the device to pirate. (It is safe to assume that somebody would come up with a way to decrypt the data if they can get at it, with brute force if nothing else.) It is, however, illegal to circumvent this protection measure, illegal to create a program that can decrypt this device's encryption format, and illegal to possess one. The DMCA makes it illegal to obtain your own recording because the access protection measure it is behind, put there to protect other people's recordings, is broken.
(Technically, you are allowed to break the protection under the exception it give you, but you must somehow do this without creating or obtaining a method or device to break the protection.)
Re:Violating Yourself (Score:3)
I don't want to pay and I wanted to move to StarOffice anyway. I use StarOffice to import the documents and then save them in sdw format.
So would StarOffice be a tool for circumvention?
Could MS sue Sun under the DMCA for the distribution of such a tool?
Re:Wang didn't own the documents (Score:3)
You are confused. The DMCA, contrary to it's name, doesn't merely regulate copyright. It has anti-reverse-engineering provisions, which is the point of this conversation. In the above examples, proprietary formats would have to be reverse engineered, and that's at stake.
Re:Your _Own_ Sound Recordings (Score:3)
sue over. In this case, as the copyright holder, you cannot infringe
your own copyright (and you could also grant waivers to other
parties). So there is no illegality in your example. The examples
that the EFF are after concern fair use of products whose copyright
are held by other parties.
Re:Software Author != Copyright Owner (Score:3)
Wrong. The software has an EULA (End User License Agreement). The EULA is agreed to before the software is used. The License Agreement specifically states that all information entered into the software becomes the Intellectual Property of the software author.
This is not only not rare, it is standard.
Then the records belong to the company, and they CAN sue you for circumvention if you try to retrieve them. This is what Microsoft is going to do with word documents and Office subscriptions.
Scenario: You write a document in microsoft word that is critical of microsoft. Microsoft revokes your Office subscription. You are no longer legally permitted to access the document you wrote that was critical of them.
Hide and watch, the shaft is coming.
Road to Tycho (Score:3)
If anyone wants to know how bad this can get, have a read of Road to Tycho [gnu.org] over at the GNU website.
It talks about how reading books that someone else owns would be illegal.
Of course, if the school ever found out that he had given Lissa his own password, it would be curtains for both of them as students, regardless of what she had used it for. School policy was that any interference with their means of monitoring students' computer use was grounds for disciplinary action. It didn't matter whether you did anything harmful--the offense was making it hard for the administrators to check on you. They assumed this meant you were doing something else forbidden, and they did not need to know what it was.
Mathematica 4.0 (Score:3)
Handicapped Children (Score:3)
Hi!
I'm the father of an eight-year-old with Down Syndrome. Annie is mentally retarded, and (like many Downs kids) she prizes the independence of watching videotapes on TV, and playing the companion CDs on her computer.
However, a mentally-retarded eight-year-old is nobody's idea of a "safe" user. She has proven, empirically, that crunchy peanut butter applied to a CD-ROM makes the perfect grinding medium for destroying the laser in the CD-ROM drive. She has proven, empirically, just how much popcorn you must stuff into an RCA VCR to make it eat the videotape. She routinely destroys videotapes and CDs.
I can address the problem by making copies--duplicating the media. Annie watches the copy, and when it is destroyed I just make another copy of the original. I can duplicate videos, CDs, and (through a client) DVDs. But--when I duplicate that content I am violating the DMCA.
An MPAA lawyer might ask "why not just buy another DVD? (or videotape or CD-ROM)?" For most media I could--but Annie particularly lives for Disney animation. And Disney, for years, has maintained the practice of only selling videotapes (and now DVDs) for a limited period of time. They will sell a movie, like Toy Story for a limited period of time. Once that title is removed from stores it is not available, anywhere, in any form. So the only way I can permit Annie to watch Toy Story is to duplicate the original, and let her watch the duplicate.
I have previously written to the EFF, offering to participate with Annie in any litigation regarding the DMCA. My offer still stands--I believe strongly in the legal benefits of intellectual property law, and am extremely conscious of the image that I project to my (other) children when I bootleg media for Annie. I'm violating the DMCA--and I know it. And they know it. And they know that violating the law is wrong.
All I want to do is let my little girl watch videos, achieving some pride in her self-sufficiency....
John Murdoch
jmurdoch@windgap.com
Macrovision (Score:3)
My TNT2 Ultra video card has TV-out. When I got it, I thought I could hook it up to my VCR and do some cheap video editing (since I have a capture card). Or I could hook it to my VCR to feed my big TV to play Quake (since my TV doesn't have video-in but my VCR does).
But the card has Macrovision, I suppose to defeat the criminal masterminds out there that would buy a $200 3D video card so they could make VHS copies of DVDs. Both of them.
Why put Macrovision on a stand-alone 3D card?
One strange scenario that I'm stuck in. (Score:3)
I have Quake. I bought the one with the mission packs ("The Offering"), and I have the case to it; however, I lost the Quake disc a while ago. Luckily, I made a backup of the directory structure in the disk (what luck!). Unfortunately, I didn't back up the ten audio tracks; the ambient music to Quake (composed by Trent Reznor; a must-have in any NIN-fan's collection!).
Now, I'm stuck with a choice. Should I give in, search for Quake (the Quake disc with WINQUAKE and GLQUAKE; that's what came with "The Offering")? Should I find someone who has the shareware demo disc (which has all 10 music tracks) and rip it to re-burn Quake? Or should I just search for the MP3's of the tracks (via FTP, Gnutella, etc. for a >140kbps collection) and re-burn Quake that way?
From what I've gathered, all of those methods fall under the "backup copy" clause of the license aggreement; however, it might fall under scrutiny because of the DMCA.
One thing really makes this thing ironic: the last time I had the disc, I was playing squake on RedHat 6.2! DAMN YOU LINUX, YOU MADE ME LOSE THE QUAKE DISC!!! (sorry, had to let out some steam.)
Cue:Cat (Score:3)
Re:Medical Records may be "owned" by software (Score:4)
It took two of us less than a month to reverse engineer the file formats and comm protocols on both systems and write our own interface in-house. Both vendors were hopping mad, but there really wasn't much they could do about it. We didn't break any laws, and we didn't violate any contract agreements we had with them.
Because of the DMCA, we'll probably be barred from doing anything like that again in the future. We can't risk having our software disabled, and we won't condone breaking a law. Not even a bad one. We'll just have to pay whatever amount of money the vendor demands, and siphon off the funds from the school district or the street department or whatever. This law is going to cost the taxpayer, one way or the other. They'll either get decreased service levels from government, or they'll pay more to get the same.
Some examples (Score:4)
SDMI: needless to say, the ability of the music company to control how you can listen to your music, as well as forcing you to obtain a 'new' copy for a different device that you might want to play on, goes against fair use. Having a program that removes the protection but allows the music to be heard on any device you own will be illegal, though the final use is fair use.
HDTV: Broadcasters have been fighting to get into the HDTV standard a bit of data that prevents the ability for digital devices to record a show, even for purposes of time-shifting. Fair use in time-shifting has been upheld by the SC, but having a device that 'unintentionally' ignores this bit would be illegal.
Loss of older media to the public domain (Score:4)
If IP controls existed on books from day 1, I would not be able to read my 1885 edition of the 'Last Days of Pompeii', or my 1900's Harold MacGrath books, or almost half of my collection.
What this boils down to is this: If IP is locked to a specific media, the ability to read those media will eventually be lost and the IP will be lost to the public domain and to the general public. If you find a bunch of Edison cylinders, you may not be able to find a player, but you can build one fairly easily. If, in the year 2090, you find a bunch of DVD's, how will you be able to recover the audio and video from them? When the next big thing comes out for video, do you HAVE to buy all your favorite movies again, many of which may not be available?
Another one. (Score:4)
-------------------
Hypothetical Scenario (Score:4)
This leaves me with a legally purchased DVD player that will not show any new DVD's. I am then forced to either buy a an "approved" player, or circumvent the encryption to view legally obtained movies on my legally obtained player.
Secured Documents, Proprietary formats (Score:4)
Excuse me, reality interrupt.
First, you clearly haven't the faintest idea how much a quality designer costs per hour. I have worked for (among many others) grade-school textbook publishers. After spending thousands of man hours preparing camera-ready copy -- graphics, charts, graphs, layouts, formats, cross-indexing, etc. -- I assure you, the words are not the expensive part.
Second, one of the most popular applications used for precisely that kind of document is Quark which at least used to (dunno about now) had physical security. You had to put a dongle on your ABD chain, and if that frob got lost or damaged, you can kiss your documents goodby unless you're willing to pony up for another copy.
And if your copy of Quark or PageMaker decides not to let you access your document because it has decided that you might be a copyright infringer (not of your material, but of their software), suddenly you develop quite an appreciation for applications which crack the proprietary format of those documents and converts them to something useful.
Another example: I have been hired to do programming in Excel, which allows one to "protect" documents. I have been paid tens of thousands of dollars for single "Workbooks". If you were my client in such a case and discovered you had lost the password to a such a custom Excel document, how would you feel to be told that hiring a programmer to extract the code in such a document would be illegal.
And, Gosh, it would never happen that a secretary might quit a job in a huff and neglect to mention what password she used to "protect" her company's Excel spreadsheets or WordPerfect documents.
You know what? It's not illegal to break into your own home. It's not illegal to break into the home of someone else on their behest. It's not illegal to break into your own locked file cabinet. But the DMCA makes it effectively illegal to break into your own electronic home. You lock yourself out of a document, you might be able to card the door (dictionary attack on password), but you most certainly can't break down the door (parsing the document into another format).
In some places (e.g. NY) it is illegal to own lockpicks -- if you're not a bonded locksmith. I do not see any provision in the DMCA which allows for the virtual equivalent of locksmiths -- people who own cracking tools and use them within the law.
Imagine if you had put a document into a file cabinet and locked the cabinet and then, oops, lost the key. Imagine the locksmith showing up and saying "Hey, can I borrow a bobby pin? I'm allowed to pick locks, but not if I use any tool designed to do so."
Welcome to America under the DMCA.
At my school.... (Score:4)
Re:Violating Yourself (Score:4)
So it will be legal to crack you own documents. Great. But as the software needed to crack will be illegal, it will be impossible.
Cheers,
--fred
Re:Violating Yourself (Score:4)
Let me preface my comments with the obligatory invocation of IANAL.
Are you referring to accessing your own documents by fiddling only with your document files or by attempting to crack the word processor so you can view your documents?
In the first case, while it's an intersting example, doesn't seem to be covered by the DMCA. More specifically:
Since you're the copyright owner of the document, unless you're totally wigged out on cough syrup, I can't imagine you not giving yourself permission.
As for the second case, cracking the word processor to view your own documents, I think this would be somewhat analogous to stealing gas for your car. You can make the argument that your car is your property, but that it can't doing anything without the gas. However, I do admit that that analogy suffers from the possible flaw of trying to equate real property and intellectual property. Besides, virtually all word processors have options within them to save documents in non-proprietary formats. Admittedly, this can result in less-than-ideal formatting information, but in an ideal world it's the content that's much more valuable than the presentation.
More real life examples (Score:4)
The firm I worked for switched from Wangs to PCs without warning. Suddenly, the previous two years' work was inaccessible. I got together with a friend, and we jury rigged a Wang drive to the PC. (This took cursing and more cable than I ever want to see again.) Then we figured out a way to transfer the Wang stuff as RTF.
What we did to save the department's work would now be illegal under the DCMA, because we circumvented both hardware and software to read our obsolete information.
I also have obsolete images on CD-Rom that were processed over 12 years ago. These images are not in JPG, or even in GIF, which existed 12 years ago. They are on a proprietary format, created by a company which has since gone out of business. By the provisions of the DCMA, I am breaking the law when I try to reverse engineer the format to veiw the information.
The librarian of congress granted two short-term exceptions to the DCMA, but one is library related, while the other is related to obsolete hardware. My hardware can see the CD-ROM, and can see the fact that the files exist, and that they take up size. No software exists to let me see the pictures my husband took. The actual negatives were destroyed in a flood. The company which created this monstrosity no longer exists.
Lest anyone think that only small companies go out of business, please read Business Week for 1984 through 1986, and then discuss Wang computing.
Some possible examples. (Score:5)
1. Consumer Protection. If you buy frozen food, you have the right to expect that the package will contain the food that is listed on the front. You also have a right to expect that food to be safe for humans to consume, if handled correctly. By prohibiting the direct handling of digital information, consumers cannot guarantee their own safety.*
2. Consumer Protection II. If you were to go to a restraunt, you can be confident that, if the food is prepared in a manner which is unsafe, it will be observed and reported by consumers. Prohibiting consumers from looking to see how digital information is prepared ensures that no consumer can ever be sure if the digital products they buy are safe.*
3. The US Anti-Trust laws prohibit any company from using a monopoly in one area to acquire a monopoly in another. Any company, or group of companies, with a monopoly on the encryption technology must also have a monopoly on all players and recorders. Nobody else can build them. This also means that they have a monopoly on what gets recorded as they can decide who can use a recorder and what for.
4. It has already been decided by the US courts that digital recordings and computer programs are forms of free speech, as talked about in the first ammendment. If you were to digitally record your own spoken words, using a program you had written, and played them back, also using a program you had written, you would be performing an illegal act, even though every single thing you did was protected.
5. If it is illegal to preserve the history that is being made today, then that history will certainly be lost. The past happens only once. Many recordings in the past have been lost for this very reason. This must be weighed against the claimed possibility of a loss which cannot be known. The law favours that which is beyond all reasonable doubt. The certainty of past experience would seem to meet that. The claims on which the DMCA rests do not.
6. Medical establishments will suffer unnecessary delays in the sending and receiving of computer-based medical information. As this is the method most likely to be used only in the most critical of situations, it is likely to result in injury or death. Companies have no legal right to protection from manslaughter charges, especially if the defect is known in advance and cannot legally be prevented from harm.
*By "harm", I'm including such possibilities as:
a) Defective hardware, which cannot legally be examined for such defects, where the defect is likely to cause an electical fire.
b) Sounds, introduced by the decryption process or deliberately added at the time of recording, which interfere with the correct functioning of the senses.
c) Computer "viruses" installed by accident or design which can infect other devices.
d) The inclusion of offensive, indecent or otherwise controlled or illegal material being present on the recording or introduced by the decryption device.
In all these cases, the ability for third-party to lawfully and independently ensure that a product is acceptable is mandatory in every single part of life except that of digital recordings. At no time has there been proven damage to any other industry as a result of such safety and quality assurance.
Some scenarios (Score:5)
-------------------
A real world example. (Score:5)
This will require me to tell you all a little bit about my life:
I share a house with two other people, one other computer programmer and an air-conditioning repairman from Costa Rica I will call "John". John lives with us because, like us, he races mountain bikes, and we have built a little bike shop into the house for building and repairing race bikes. He's a good mechanic, but his english isn't very good.
We have a really good A/V setup, but no DVD player. Last week, John brought home a DVD player from Best Buy, and "The Matrix" on DVD. He hooked it into his T.V., only to discover that the picture was, as he put it, "shit".
I told John that the picture was screwy because of a technology called Macrovision, hidden inside his DVD player. It's purpose was to prevent him from criminally copying DVD's onto VHS. John said "but I don't want to do that, I just want to watch it!". I told John that the MPAA had assumed he was a criminal, and put Macrovision in his DVD player to stop his crimes. Because John's T.V. only has analog input, he cannot use his new DVD player. No one at Best Buy told him this. He has to buy a new T.V., which he can't afford.
John got mad.
Then I told John that buying a "Macrovision scrubber" to clean up the signal was against the law, as he would be owning a circumvention device. And I went on to tell him that when he went home to Costa Rica, he couldn't use any of the DVD's he bought there in his DVD player, because they had put a special code in the DVD's in Costa Rica so they wouldn't work, and he had to buy another DVD player when he went back there. If he tried to get around the code, he would be a criminal, because of a new law.
That's when John lost it. He got really mad. He threw the DVD player back in the box, took it back to Best Buy, and got his money back, but also got thrown out of the store for using his broken English to call them "Stupid Bastard Fucking People" - as he puts it.
I tried to calm John down, but I think in his culture they don't have the emphasis on restraint. When someone does something awful to you, you get angry, and you go yell at them. He doesn't understand that in America, faceless corporations do terrible things to people all the time, and you can't get mad, because all your anger will be wasted on some powerless teen-age clerk.
In America, the only way to do exert power is to spend money. That's why I donate to the EFF.
"John" now understands why the two rich guys he lives with only watch movies on VHS.
That's my real life example.
This will not be popular here but it is a... (Score:5)
Medical Records may be "owned" by software (Score:5)
Briefly put: data produced or stored by a software package may effectively become the property of the software company, if stored in a proprietary format.
My doctor was 'held hostage' for a few years by his records software. He couldn't change packages without losing his records, even though he hated the software he was using. He finally had to hire a programmer to analyze the his records and write a converter to a tab-delimited database, so he could import it into another software package.
Under DMCA, this would be illegal. The proprietary companies often call their proprietary formats a security measure (to protect patient privacy), so it really isn't a very big step to call this 'circumvention of a security feature'
I don't know about today, but apparently this was not uncommon a few years ago -- and we can expect it to come back if DMCA gives the software companies a big stick