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United States Your Rights Online

DMCA Comments HOWTO 23

Posted by timothy from the first-select-a-nice-font dept.
pberry writes "As previously reported here on slashdot, the Copyright Office is looking for suggestions for new exemptions to the DMCA. The EFF has posted a nice HOWTO document to make your comments as effective as possible."
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DMCA Comments HOWTO More

DMCA Comments HOWTO

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  • Changes (Score:2, Insightful)

    by EdMack ( 626543 )
    My main problem is that the DMCA lasts forever - ruining the whole point of copyrights, to provide incentive for people to work more on their product.
    • I tried to read the rules on the US Copyright Office's website, and I think I felt my brain starting to melt! I am not a lawyer, and do not know how to speak legalese, but I submitted this anyway. I hope I spoke their language.

      CD music, and CD+G Compact discs with graphics, the most common format for Karaoke music.

      I propose that it should be allowed for the measures that prevent "copy protected" CDs from being played in a computer. Many use a computer as their sole method of playing discs, and have no intention of copying them. One example from personal experience is a karoke disc entitled Headbangers Hits Volume X, manufactured by Soun Choice Karaoke. I use a computer as my sole player of Karaoke media, as I do not own a dedicated karaoke player. The disc in question uses a copy protection scheme that makes it unplayable in a computer. Allegedly the purpose of this is to prevent unauthorized copying. My intention is only to play the disc, and means to circumvent the "copy protection" may exist, but the DMCA makes it illegal for me to use them. Without an exemption for playing CDs in a computer, simply playing a disc I own in my computer would make me a criminal.
  • Did anyone else find this "HOWTO" far too informal, and offensive in parts? I don't need his opinions to make a comment, especially his generalisations of geeks' political views.

  • Step one (Score:3, Funny)

    by isorox ( 205688 ) on Monday November 25, 2002 @05:16PM (#4754450) Homepage Journal
    The EFF has posted a nice HOWTO document to make your comments as effective as possible.

    Incase it gets slashdotted, here's the probably content:

    1) Include lots of money with your letter
    2) Legistature change
    3) There is no step three!

  • Damn DMCA (Score:2, Insightful)

    by suricatta ( 617778 )
    Not trying to troll here folks, but it's things like this that makes me glad I don't live in America sometimes. I wish you all godspeed towards an amicable resolution which benefits both copyright holders and consumers alike, even if the pessimist within me doesn't think that is extremely likely at this point. Kudos to the EFF for their efforts in this uphill battle.

    • Re:Damn DMCA (Score:3, Insightful)

      by GuyMannDude ( 574364 )

      Not trying to troll here folks, but it's things like this that makes me glad I don't live in America sometimes.

      You'll be less glad when Bush, Ashcroft and Rumsfeld decide to declare war on your country for some random reason under the guise of the war on terror! :)

      GMD

      • Only Congress can declare war.
        • Not anymore, I defer you to UN "Peacekeeping Resolutions" and the War Powers Act.

        • Re:Damn DMCA (Score:3, Informative)

          by macdaddy357 ( 582412 )
          The last war actullay declared by Congress was World War II. Presidents have waged war whenever they damn well pleased to, and Congress has never lifted a finger to stop them. War was never declared in the cases of Korea, Vietnam, Gulf War I, Somalia, or any of the smaller military actions since the end of WWII.
      • Don't worry, we've already thought of that! That's why our glorious leader (John Howard) is trying to wedge himself so far up Bush's arse that not many of us here in Australia recognise him anymore... Still, the concept of Bush waging war on his own rear end is slightly amusing...
        • Oh, you're from Australia? Why didn't you say so. There are only 19 million people in Australia. There are more people in Texas than there are in Australia. Talk about insignificant.

          (Relax, I'm just kidding. I've been to Australia several times, and I love it. Can't wrap my head around the whole "Vegemite" idea, but you guys have much cooler currency than we do, and your woman are far, far sexier. Gotta confess, though, that I'm a died-in-the-wool All-Blacks supporter. But other than that, Aussie, Aussie, Aussie!)
          • Don't ask me about Vegemite either. Apparently it's not even Australian anyway, and it's owned by a foreign cigarette company, but don't quote me on that.

            And don't worry, I know how insignificant we are. :) Reminds me of a joke me and my friends throw about here sometimes (probably a rip-off of something even funnier, but anyway):

            "Quick we're being invaded! Send in the Airforce!"
            "We can't"
            "Why not??"
            "The propellor's broken"
            "Ok then, send in the Navy!"
            "Sorry, no can do"
            "Why is that?"
            "There's a hole in the sail"
            "What about the Army?"
            "Afraid not"
            "No?"
            "He's fixing the propellor"
  • ..my favorite rerason to oppose it is that it's just stupid. I mean lame. It ain't gonna work all that well. Look at the "war on drugs" and the gun rights assaults. It's dumb, it don't work. Waste of time and effort. Alcohol prohibition was similar, restrict everyone because there was the potential for misuse. Just dumb. The old arguments prove it's overblown, the cassette recorder was going to ruin music, make them all go bankrupt. Heck the reel to reel was going to do that. The VCR was going to make television and the mooovees go bankrupt, and it didn't happen. Xerox was going to cause the collapse of the book and magazine and newspaper publishing industry. It hasn't happened.

    It's nuts! Now to find a way to put that into proper legalese gobbledegook.

    The other point which is very hard to get across to "them" is, it's partly, and this is legit, it's these mega cartels own fault for conspiring to jack up prices to such a ridiculous level that people consider it not only their right to copy and share, but a "payback" of sorts. People aren't stupid, they know full well that cd music is way over priced. It's like the "volume sales" concept has been lost on them. Put out your product at a more reasonable price, then it'll sell, end of story, and for that matter, isn't this what the blank cd copy tax is for in the first place?

    I know there's outfits out their try to make bona fide looking counterfeits, this is a different story. There's a big difference between some outfit pumping out thousands of cloned copies to make money and individuals making copies for their own use and to share amongst their peer-enthusiasts. to me that's a more realistic dividing line, are you doing it for profit? Is it someone's illegitimate business model to counterfeit? At that point, sure, enforce the law, anything but that, nope, not seeing it.

    Too bad normal "plain talk" doesn't appear to be worthy enough to send in, what the heck, I'll try both ways, can't hurt...

    And if it gets hard wired into hardware, swell, I'll just keep using old hardware then, no biggee to me. Ya, it might affect my second career as a basement cyclotron builder,heh, but really, I'll just stick to old used hardware then, I won't be buying any crippled hardware anytime soon.

  • The wording is so ridiculously broad it could be interpereted to prohibit having a 7 year old, because any 7 year old can decipher Adobe's ROT-13 encryption on eBooks. That makes 7-year-olds an illegal copyright circumvention tool according to the DMCA. What, for christ's sake, were they smoking when they wrote the DMCA?

    Except try to say it nicely and don't be so vitriolic. ;)

  • Quit whining and go submit a useful comment... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Sylver Dragon ( 445237 ) on Monday November 25, 2002 @07:56PM (#4755535) Journal
    Ok, the DMCA sucks monkey balls, we all know this. But rather than sit here and rant about it, try and find a good, specific example in your life that shows where something should be allow. The idea isn't to just sit and bash the DMCA, they are just going to shitcan your comment and you will have gained nothing. Personally, I have already found one item that I felt needed to be included with this ruling: DVD Region Encoding. I don't know if it is allowed or not, but considering that it is a technological measure which controls access to a copyrighted work, hacking my DVD player to ignore it just might be a crime under this law.
    Sure, it took me the better part of an hour to craft what I thought was a good argument for the inclusion of circumvention of Region Encoding in this ruling. Luckily I didn't have to go far to find a concrete example, the "Futurama" DVDs. (Love the show, really want the DVDs. They were only released in the UK a.k.a. Region 2.)
    My point is, if you have something you want to be able to hack, then get off your ass and go tell the people that are going to make the descion.

  • I began brainstorming for the comment I will submit. Here's some of my ideas. Feedback is welcome.

    class of works 1: player device software or firmware designed to impede
    interoperability of the player with independent 3rd party works. Examples: "mod chips" for game consoles

    class of works 2: digital works sold to the public for which no analogue TPM-free
    analogue version is published, "in print", and generally available for sale [if fair use is not raped b/c analogue is available then require it to be available for that reason]

    class of works 3: Works published or owned by companies or authors that engage in
    anticompetitive business practices, antitrust violations, and/or deceptive trade practices
    involving their copyrighted products. The period of exception shall begin upon the
    rendering of a final judgement or legal settlement against the company and shall last
    until three years pass without a judicial or settlement finding of continued improper
    behavior. Examples: MS for antitrust, RIAA for price fixing

    class of works 4: data sets, lists, databases, or other collections whose individual
    elements are public domain facts, not the original expression of the data set creator or
    licensing contributor thereto, or otherwise not copyrightable by the data set creator. Examples: the CDDB thing, the recent price list thing

    class of works 5: a work or compilations containing a work whose copyright has expired Examples: DVD's of the really old movies
  • Dumb laws breed disrespect for the LAW. The hole they dig is deeper and wider all the time. Copyright is automatic and nearly endless while Patent protection requires novelty and expressions of genius to be granted. This is greatly out of balance. If you believe generic drugs are a good thing for our society, then how can you believe that Copyrights of nearly unlimited terms are anything but bad for society. If we were to extend Patent terms to the same lengths that Copyrights have already been extended, then nearly everyone would seek ways around such laws. This is what is happening with Copyright.

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